Subject: moth in Halloween costume
Geographic location of the bug: Washington, DC, USA
Date: 10/30/2019
Time: 05:39 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Hi! I scared up this beauty amid fallen red oak leaves on 10/30/19. I was admiring its leaf camouflage, then I turned it to another angle and realized that it was dressed, one day early, in its Halloween costume of cat-owl-fighter jet. Can you identify it?
How you want your letter signed: Rachel B
Dear Rachel,
We are confident your Owlet Moth is in the genus Zale which is represented on the Moth Photographers Group. Perhaps it is the Lunate Zale, Zale lunata, which is pictured on BugGuide. Daniel is leaving Los Angeles tonight to fly to your fair city with a group of Journalism students tonight. He’s hoping it isn’t too cold and rainy. We are going to tag your posting as the Bug of the Month for November 2019.
Update: November 8, 2019
Daniel rushed to post this submission live the day he left town to travel to Washington DC where his LACC students won both the CMA Pinnacle and the ACP Pacemaker Award for best magazine from a two year school. He decided in the time crunch to only post the image where the Lunate Zale could be identified. Now that time permits, he has added this additional image with its interesting and unusual angle.