Subject: Feathery tailed moth
Location: New Orleans
November 22, 2014 10:58 pm
Hi!
Found this bug at the local farmers market in New Orleans. It appears to be a black and white moth with a feathery tail. Any clues to what it is?
Thanks!
Signature: Milk n moths

Melonworm Moth

Hi Milk n moths,
This Melonworm Moth gets its common name because the caterpillars “feed on cucumber family plants: cucumber, melon, squash” according to BugGuide.

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Subject: Pondside Pyralid moth
Location: Mancelona, MI
June 27, 2014 7:15 pm
Dear awesome people whom I adore,
Would you like a bunch of already-identified moths for your archives? I’m currently taking a field course in Animal Ecology in northern lower Michigan, and the area is just crawling with all sorts of wonderful moths. So I’ve been spending most of my free time id-ing moths. And because you’re awesome people I’d like to pass some of them on to you–particularly moths that you don’t seem to have archived yet. I’ll send them as separate emails for ease of sorting. First up (unless you’d rather not have them), this lovely Pondside Pyralid Moth (Elophila icciusalis). I didn’t take measurements (I’m sorry! Moths are hard to measure when they’re flocking around lamps in hopes of finding true love!), but according to Bugguide their wingspan is 16-26 mm.
(I tried to send this a minute ago but it didn’t want to go; if this is a duplicate email, I apologize!)
Signature: Helen

Pondside Pyralid Moth

Hi Helen,
Interestingly, we formatted all of your submissions in the inverse order that you sent them, but that means that folks who visit our site today will actually read them in the correct chronological order.  We have already addressed some issues that you bring up.  We greatly appreciate all your research.  We know how much time that takes, especially with smaller moths.  Even identification to the family level is sometimes very labor intense.  According to BugGuide, the Pondside Pyralid Moth is somewhat unique in that “larvae are aquatic; adults found near larval habitat, and are attracted to light.”  BugGuide elaborates with “larvae feed on aquatic plants such as buckbean, duckweed (Lemna spp.), eelgrass, pondweeds (Potamogeton spp.), and sedges” and “Larvae and pupae protect themselves in a case made of plant material.”  Thanks again for filling gaps in our archive with your wonderful images.  Now that we have posted all of your submissions, we can respond to one of those paranoid requests with blurry images, most of which do not get posted.

Thank you so much for the kind words, and for posting my pictures! I’ll keep sending them, but at a slower rate. About the difficulty of identifying moths–oh my goodness, yes. However, I’ve found an absolutely invaluable tool for that. Discover Life has an extensive moth id guide, which you can browse by state or at the level of the whole country. It allows you to select your moth’s characteristics (primary color, wing shape, size, pattern, etc.) so you can narrow it down considerably–and if there’s less than a hundred results you can do a side-by-side comparison. They’ve got guides for dragonflies/damselflies/skimmers, caterpillars, and a whole lot of other things as well! While it may not be perfect or completely comprehensive, it’s been a lifesaver anyway.
Sincerely,
Helen

Thanks for the tip Helen.  We like hearing about new resources for insect identification.

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Subject: Costa Rica moth no. 1
Location: Arenal area, Costa Rica
February 18, 2014 5:59 am
Came to lights at Arenal Observatory Lodge, about 600 meters elevation, Caribbean slope. I identified about 80 others, but none of the books that I could obtain or websites that I found helped with this one. Pictures taken in December 2013.
Unless you have access to better resources than I could find online, please don’t take a lot of time on this. I looked at all the sites listed on this useful page http://www.aprairiehaven.com/?p=14485, in particular the Dan Janzen and Cameron Prybol cites, which where very useful for identifying most of my other moth pictures.
Thanks.
Signature: Ben Jesup

Siga pyronia

Hi again Ben,
Thanks so much for resending this image using our standard form and also for providing additional information.  Its robust body indicates it is a larger moth.  Can you recall the approximate size?  It reminds us of moths in the family Erebidae, which includes the Tiger Moths, Underwing Moths and the Black Witch.  This really is a pretty moth with such subtle coloration.  Perhaps one of our readers will be able to provide an identification.

Yes, it is gorgeous–the most striking of the moths that I wasn’t able to identify.  (I did stumble across another picture of online somewhere, but it was unidentified there as well.)  And yes, it was pretty good sized, I would say at least a three-inch wingspan.  I was thinking it might be in one of the genera not too far from the underwing moths, but there are also so geometrids with a similar shape.  Maybe I should try to contact Dan Janzen or Cameron Prybol and see if they would be willing to take a look at the ones I couldn’t identify.
I’m a bit of a Luddite, but sometime I will try to figure out how to post all of pictures so that others might benefit from all of the work that I did trying to identify them.
Thanks again.
Ben

Karl provides an identification:  Siga pyronia
Hi Daniel and Ben:
What a beauty! My initial thought was Geometridae but that didn’t pan out so I had to widen my search. Having no luck at my usual sites, I turned to an old favorite of mine that I have been ignoring recently. The Electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana (EBCA) provides access to a vast wealth of information about the fauna of Central America. The information appeared originally in a series of thick volumes, published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It can be a little daunting, but always rewarding. Your moth is Siga pyronia, a Crambid Snout Moth in the Family Crambidae. As far as I can tell the genus has only one other species, the gorgeous Moonlight Queen (Siga liris), which lives in South America. The EBCA provides an illustration (see figure 7) and good description on page 198, in: Lepidoptera-Heterocera. Vol. II (1891-1900) by Herbert Druce. In Ben’s photo, what appear to be grey colored bands are actually almost clear (hyaline) bands that allow the grey background to show through. The BoldSystems website also has a number of good pictures. Regards. Karl

Good morning Karl,
We are thrilled to be able to provide Ben with an identification thanks to your meticulous research.

Excellent!  Never would have guessed that it was a Crambid.  And thanks for the reference to the EBCA, which I hadn’t heard of.  It helped me identify a butterfly from my trip.  I looked through all of the moth plates, but couldn’t easily find any of my other unidentified moths.  I’d be curious to hear what Karl’s “usual sites” are—maybe they would help me identify the others.
Thanks again.
Ben

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Subject: scary cat o nine tail butt!
Location: Florida
December 6, 2013 11:53 am
Hi this bug was on a glass door inside my house in Vero Beach Florida. His butt sways back and forth in a threatening way he is maybe a half inch big. Are those stingers ,are they poison poison and what is he?
Thanks
Signature: Blondeponder

Melonworm Moth

Dear Blondeponder,
This is a Melonworm Moth, Diaphania hyalinata, or a closely related species in the same genus.  The Melonworm Moth does not sting, nor is it poisonous, however, it is considered to be a pest species if its larvae are numerous.  According to BugGuide:  “Larvae feed on cucumber family plants: cucumber, melon, squash.”

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