Yikes, this one’s a bit belated; I just haven’t had any time to sit down and write. The last couple of weeks I’ve been hell-bent on getting our back deck into a semi-functioning state so our clumsy cat stops falling through the gaps. Anyway, I spent May 4-12th up in Prince George to visit the folks and get a few days of mothing in. Here’s the report.
It was a pleasant trip – always great to see my parents – but not all that much in the new-moth-department. That said, I’ve mothed that very same location around this time before, so it was hardly a surprise I only saw three lifers.
- Lampropteryx sufumata (Water carpet moth). I bumped into my first one of these when I wandering through my parent’s property, looking for fungi. The ever-cool Sarcosoma globosum (Witches’ cauldron) are lurking in those woods so I’d hoped to see some more, but while I was looking I stumbled across this moth. After a little research I realized it was a species never-yet reported for North America on iNat, recognized back in 2008 as holarctic. An amusing twist was that a week after reporting it, Jim Johnson from iNat noticed I’d actually observed this same species at the same location, at the same time of year, 4 years earlier. Go figure.
- Callisto denticulella (Garden Apple Slender). This has yet to be confirmed, but I remember feeling semi-confident with the ID. Gorgeous little leaf miner moth. I really need a macro lens.
- Cladara atroliturata (The Scribbler). I’m a sucker for any moth with the definitive noun in its name. I’d been eyeing with envy the few iNat sightings that have been trickling in in BC, and the moment I saw it against my parent’s barn wall I knew exactly what it was. This was the night of the well-publicized aurora borealis that was wowing everyone in the northern hemisphere, but I was so immersed in my moth sightings I forgot all about it and missed out. I blame you, The Scribbler.
Other highlights and lowlights
Feralia jocosa. Dave Holden reminded me that I was in jocosa territory, and that an all-dark hindwing was diagnostic. I do love the Feralia (how could you not?) so seeing the only remaining BC species I haven’t seen in the genus would have been a huge delight. But… IDing by viewing the hindwing?
I thus learned how sodding hard it is to persuade them to show their hindwing. Honestly I’ve never tried before. No doubt there’s a trick to it (singing softly to them? offering them a bribe? showing them some leg?) but I had very little luck trying to gently separate the wings – they’d object and try to run off each time – and I wasn’t about to injure any of them in a clumsy attempt to force the wings apart. The most success I had was by carefully hurling them onto the ground where I’d get a brief flash of the underwing. I know what you’re thinking: what a pro.
So no, even though the markings were quite different from Feralia comstocki I’ve seen back home + elsewhere in the province (and curiously like deceptiva sometimes), I think they were all comstocki and not jocosa. Think I’ll have to wait until I see one of the rarer brown individuals that can occur in that species. Those look pretty distinctive.
Depressaria radiella en masse. Vast numbers of these guys, wow. Everywhere I looked. Really a very attractive moth; I got to know them quite a bit better on this trip.
Death jar. This was the first time I actually collected some moths – I mean, more than a single specimen or two. If I recall, I collected something like 15 or so. Initially it was a pretty grim affair, but I got used to it. The kill jar I’d created wasn’t a huge triumph; it was too hard to keep the sweating off the walls and too large to easily clear it off. Dave Holden has since given me a bunch of tips and a smaller more manageable jar which I’ll try out – once I get some more ethyl acetate.1
Going negative. The day-to-night temperature differences were quite startling up north. One night it dipped to about -2. I’ve never set up light traps in such cold weather before and it was interesting to see just how much it impacted the catch. With 4 lepileds going all night, I caught 5 moth. Seriously. Five. No exaggeration. Don’t think I’ll be heading up to the arctic anytime soon with my traps.
Euthyatira pudens, pennsylvanica-style? The majority of Euthyatira I saw up during this week were very different from anything I’d seen before. After a little research I learned of a pennsylvanica subspecies that is supposed to be present in the province. Very cool.
Annnndddd…. I think those are the stand-outs.
Not a bad trip. But yes, picking up only 3 new moths was a disappointment. I’m shooting to get up to 1,000 BC lep species this year so I’m going to have to buck up!
- I won’t get too deeply into the rationale about collection here, but even from the start of this hobby, I’d known insect collection was a necessary part of the job and genuinely valuable. That said, my dad warned me that bumping off a moth was probably how Pol Pot got started…. uh-oh. ↩︎
BC Moths 