Lovely Loopers (Family Geometridae)

The Greater and the Lesser Grapevine Loopers (Eulithis gracilineata and E. diversilineata) live in suburban, rural, and wooded areas in eastern North America. Although the caterpillars are quite distinct, adults can be the very devil to differentiate;

Fuzzy Fall Caterpillars (Family Erebidae)

Today we consider three fuzzy, fall caterpillars. Some long-haired caterpillars have irritating/poisonous hairs, but the sources that the BugLady consulted underplay the “toxicity card” in connection with these three. They all spend the winter as pupae. The BugLady didn’t find any mention of the adults’ feeding preferences, so they probably don’t feed at all.

Bugs without Bios IV

The BugLady has many pictures of bugs about whom she can’t find enough information to write a complete biography. Here are three more of them.

Babes in the Prairie

Baby bugs are not sweet and cuddly like, say, Golden Retriever puppies, but they have their own charm. Here are a few of the less-seen prairie babies.

Lichen Moths (Family Arctiidae)

Lichen Moths have it all! Toxins, aposematism, attitude, thoracic tympana and ultrasonic emanations, sensory setae, fecal flicking, mimicry, and even cannibalism! What an insect! LMs have some interesting sensory abilities, both as caterpillars and as adults. Like typical adult tiger moths, LMs have “ears” located on their thorax. They also make a variety of ultrasonic noises with organs on their thorax.

Two More Porch Moths

Various Geometer moths are found in forests and openings throughout North America, from Canada through Panama. They come to lights at night, but FCGs are also seen by day. Pyralid moths include many small species with varied lifestyles, but the ones that draw the most attention are those that have an impact on human food supplies. There are about 6,000 species of Pyralids worldwide, and one-tenth of them are native to North America.

Moths in Technicolor

Two moths—one a Ruby Tiger Moth and the other an owlet, the Golden Borer Moth; one common and cosmopolitan and the other in peril due to shrinking habitat; both sporting rich, saturated colors (and they both have neat genus names).

Luna Moth (Family Saturniidae)

The Giant Silk Moths are magic. Some have spectacular markings, and they can be huge, with wingspreads close to six inches. The Luna Moth has a wingspread of about four-and-a-half inches. The lime-green wings are somewhat transparent—you can just see an eyespot on the lower right wing through the upper wing.

Bug Mysteries

The BugLady takes lots of pictures as she moseys around—flowers, landscapes, a surprising number of people, and, of course, all manner of bugs. Bug pictures may stall in the BugLady’s X–Files, awaiting identification—some for a long time. Here is a selection from the X–Files. In some cases the BugLady knows part of the story; in others, even less.

Three More Moths

The world is full of well-nigh inscrutable moths, but this trio—the Yellow-collared Scape Moth, the Eyed Paectes Moth, and the Pink-barred Lithacodia Moth—stand out in a crowd. They are distinctive moths, from different moth families, that have one thing in common—their taxonomy is shifting.