More Mothing

In the Mothing post I discussed the relative sizes of of the moths, but images of individual moths aren't very useful for doing comparisons. Here are a couple of images which show multiple moths at the same time.

Hopefully you've identified the moth at the top left as a Luna Moth. The large moth below the clothespin is a Cecropia Moth. These two where the largest of our visitors. Also in the image are three Hebrew Moths. Can you find them?

This image has the moths labeled with numbers for your increased viewing enjoyment (click on the image to bigafy it).

1 - Luna Moth
2 - Cecropia Moth
3 - Azalea Sphinx
4 - Rosy Maple Moth (the left point of the four is pointing to the moth)
5 - Hebrew Moth (the top opening of the five is facing the moth)

One more image, a Cecropia Moth on my shirt, again to give an idea of the size of this creature.

Image Courtesy Terry Schmidt

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Our basic mothing setup, as shown in the first two images, is a white cotton sheet (cotton reflects UV radiation, which attracts moths) and a very bright light. The light attracts moths, and other bugs, from all around. Many of which, as you can see, land on the sheet. Sharp eyed readers may have also noticed the black light behind the sheet in the first image. Both of these lights belong to our friend Bernie, who graciously let us use them. Our light has a shield on it, and it seems an unshielded light brings in more bugs.

Image Courtesy Terry Schmidt

Thanks Bernie!