It’s satisfying that after 8 years of actively observing moths at my home, I still see new species.

When I got back from my trip to Golden last Saturday I set up traps to see which of the locals had returned. In the morning I found a particularly perplexing little Noctuid which I’d never seen before and couldn’t pin down – (“Eriopygini?”). It didn’t take long before the usual folks – Dave Holden in this instance – ID’d it as Pseudobryomima muscosa, the aptly named Mossy Pseudobryomima moth. Mossy indeed. It was a bit battered, so I was happy to find a second individual in better condition this morning, shown below, over on the west side of Bowen on Conservancy lands¹.

iNat only has 34 records of this species, 10 from BC – well, 11 as of this morning, courtesy of this chap. Perhaps when the algorithm catches up to recognize this one, we’ll see those numbers increase. PNW moths lists a fair number of observations from BC all the way down to Oregon, so maybe it’s more common than currently reported.

Handsome moth. That brings my total Lepidoptera species for Bowen Island up to 517.

1. I met with the Bowen Island Conservancy a couple of months ago to request access to their lands for setting up traps. Happy to say they agreed. ↩︎