I popped up to Lillooet last weekend to set up some traps. Not a bad trip – I saw 46 species of leps compared to 28 in the Okanagan, just 2 weeks ago. Things are heatin’ up out there!

Day #1

The first night was a bit of a scramble – doing the the 3.5 hour drive up to Lillooet after work, then rushing around to set up the traps. Work truly is the curse of the mothing class.

I set up traps at two locations: one near the airport, well out of the way and with virtually no risk of being interfered with, and a second location quite close to town. I’d used both locations before. The night wasn’t ideal: there was an almost-full moon with a cloudless sky, but in the morning I found I’d gotten a decent haul. At the stop near town – sage-brushy habitat – I got my first Anarta trifolii of the year, which I’m becoming a little more confident at IDing (rightly or wrongly). But the airport location had a whole slew of interesting things.

First there were a number of Drepanulatrix I wasn’t sure about. After a bit of legwork I decided they were mostly D. falcana, a new species for me. They were very variable, and some were downright tiny – the third image above wasn’t much wide than my finger. I also saw a couple of Drepanulatrix foeminaria – far darker with a small but stark white discal spot.

Secondly, I saw this little blighter. Soon as I saw it, I immediately plunged into “ah crap should I collect this” mode, but then realized I’d left my killing agent back at home and the hotel room’s freezer wouldn’t have kept beer cool, let alone bump off a moth.

As it turns out, I’ve actually seen it last year before up in Fort St John. It’s an undescribed species in the Blastodacna genus, but a known one – so a “known unknown” as you say (this was spotted at 1300ft elevation; the following night I caught another at 2600ft – so clearly not uncommon).

Other than these guys I saw a lot of Orthosia segregata and pacifica – odd I seem to see the latter a lot but they’re seldom reported outside the lower mainland – Pleromelloida (conserta + bonuscula), boatloads of Ypsolopha falcifera, my first Phyllodesma americana of the year, which is always cool – that’s a handsome moth, Pero behrensaria and a Cucullia which I’d mid-ID’d as a Lithophane. Plenty of other stuff too, but those were the ones that stuck out.

Day #2

The second night was a bit wetter but still brought some great stuff. I had some time to explore the area on the Saturday and chose to set up the traps at some new spots, in addition to my tried-tested-and-true location at the airport. One was up by the water treatment plant near the centre of Lillooet. It was a bit of a hike with the equipment (okay, 5 whole minutes – boy I need more exercise) but still awkward compared to the other locations. The second was far further south – about a 30 minute drive south towards Lytton, then up north along Fountain Valley road up on a non-maintained public road used to access the power lines. Great spot! Saw a new species of tiger beetle there as well. Love them tiger beetles.

I got my second Orthosia pulchella of the year, the handsome devil – much closer to O. transparens than my previous sighting and in keeping with what I’ve read about the species on PNW moths; I encountered a possible Xylena brucei – not positive about the ID but it was unusually grey, just not as large as I expected. I saw a few Eucosmini, which I tentatively ID’d as the very-variable Eucosma parmatana, a Spodolepis danbyi, a pair of Pyrausta subsequalis, plus a fascinating diurnal moth which Libby Avis suggested was Sarata – not a genus I know. I’ll be curious to see how those discussions end up – her mention of the sexes being radically dimorphic was bang on from what I saw. I also got a Lithophane ponderosa which was particularly pleasing. I’d seen an individual on Bowen a month ago which seemed rather dubious (not many ponderosa pine around here, which they apparently depend upon) but it was the absolute spitting image of this new observation. So I’m sticking to my guns.

And lastly

I need more light traps! Elsewhere on this blog I mentioned four traps was pretty much all I could handle: there just isn’t enough time to get to them in the morning and empty them before the day warms up enough to make extracting the moths too difficult – they’re too animated. In the summer that’s absolutely right, but in the cold spring mornings I could do far more. Plus throw in the fact that my identification is getting better each year so I can get through the contents of the nets quicker and quicker. On this trip I was comfortably done emptying the traps at multiple locations by 8:30 am (dawn was ~6). And frankly for the trap I set up 30 mins away, it was too far to travel for a single trap.

So, conclusion + plan: this year I’ll be selling my organs on the black market to afford purchasing another 4 traps. What’s a liver for anyway. Overrated, if you ask me.