Subject: Unidentified moth
Geographic location of the bug: Vancouver Island, BC
Date: 07/30/2018
Time: 04:15 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Hello! Here is a picture of a moth that I found on my door a couple weeks ago. I recently became a moth enthusiast so I have difficulty IDing some of them, despite long internet searches and owning multiple moth books. What is this particular moth?
How you want your letter signed: Rachel
Dear Rachel,
This looks to us like a Large Yellow Underwing, Noctua pronuba, which is pictured on BugGuide. According to BugGuide: “hindwing yellow with black terminal band; forewing varies from light to dark brown to orangish to grayish, and from almost unmarked to boldly patterned; reniform spot large and either dark or barely visible; small dark patch along costa near apex nearly always present” and “Introduced from Europe to Nova Scotia in 1979, this species has since spread north to the Arctic Ocean, west to the Pacific, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.”