{"id":11317,"date":"2020-02-12T09:17:39","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T15:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/?p=11317"},"modified":"2020-02-19T09:42:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T15:42:16","slug":"small-magpie-mothmystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/bug-of-the-week\/small-magpie-mothmystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Magpie Moth Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Greetings, BugFans,<\/p>\n<p>A few days ago, the BugLady was mulling over which insect she was going to feature in the next BOTW. She headed out the door to hike to the mailbox, and there, on the inside of the storm door, trapped between it and the back door, sat this beautiful Small magpie moth. The BugLady managed a few mediocre shots (on a west-facing glass door at twilight), but happily, <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/105683\">other people have done better<\/a> (some have a<a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1187270\/bgimage\"> broader band on the edge of the wing<\/a>):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/527448\">https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/527448<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1475330\/bgimage\">https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1475330\/bgimage<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/20549\/bgimage\">https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/20549\/bgimage<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/141026\/bgimage\">https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/141026\/bgimage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Small magpie moths<\/strong> (<em>Anania hortulata<\/em>) are in the Crambid snout moth family <em>Crambidae<\/em>. Overall, it\u2019s a pretty drab group of moths, with some delightful exceptions like these, of previous BOTW fame: <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/851405\/bgpage\">Bi-colored pyrausta<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1119674\/bgimage\">Orange mint moth<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1382922\/bgimage\">Raspberry pyrausta<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/37715\/bgimage\">White-spotted sable<\/a>. <em>Crambidae<\/em> is a small family of 157 mostly-tropical species; their larvae conceal themselves in fruits, stems, or rolled\/webbed-together leaves while eating.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re in the subfamily <em>Pyraustinae<\/em>, and according to <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\">bugguide.net<\/a>, Pliny the Elder said that Pyrausta was, \u201ca winged insect that was supposed to live in fire.\u201d \u201cMagpie\u201d apparently refers to the moth\u2019s flashy black and white scales (there\u2019s a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wildlifeinsight.com\/british-moths\/magpie-moth-caterpillar-abraxas-grossulariata\/\">Clouded magpie and a regular magpie moth<\/a>, too, but not here).<\/p>\n<p>Small magpie moths, it turns out, are not native to North America &#8211; they are at home across Eurasia &#8211; so the majority of the biographical information the BugLady found was on English nature websites (but, FYI, their Norwegian name is Nesleengmott). They probably arrived on this continent (at Nova Scotia) in the late 1800\u2019s, and their checkerboard range now includes the Canadian Maritimes and New England states, Quebec, Ontario, Michigan and Wisconsin (with a southern outlier specimen from Maryland), and the Pacific Northwest, to which, according to one source, they were introduced.<\/p>\n<p>When they\u2019re not sitting on storm doors (and it\u2019s not winter), Small magpie moths are found in gardens, edges, hedgerows, and weedy waste spaces. The BugLady could find no mention of the adults feeding, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/43983\/bgimage\">caterpillar <\/a>eats the leaves of nettles (mostly), plus various mints, and bindweed.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s only one generation a year \u2013 caterpillars make a cocoon in a concealed spot in fall and spend the winter in it, pupating in spring without leaving the cocoon. They emerge as adults not long after, with a May-to-September flight period.<\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s the deal. There\u2019s no way this adult moth should have been on the landscape this week. Yes, it\u2019s been a mostly-mild winter here (once we got through November), and yes, the UK Butterfly Conservation site says that they \u201ccan be recorded as early as February and sometimes as late as November,\u201d but it\u2019s warmer overall in England, with the Gulf Stream, and all. And one source says that larvae sometimes overwinter in attics (which the BugLady doesn\u2019t have). So where did this moth come from? (And where did it go? The BugLady looked down to fiddle with her camera and when she looked up again, the moth was gone \u2013 presumably into the house \u2013 no sightings yet.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rabbit hole alert:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For those who want to pursue the Pliny translation further, <a href=\"https:\/\/bugguide.net\">bugguide.net<\/a> offers this link to the Tufts University Perseus Digital Library and Pliny\u2019s writings about <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D11%3Achapter%3D42\">\u201cAn Animal Found in Fire\u201d<\/a><\/em>. \u201cThat element, also, which is so destructive to matter, produces certain animals; for in the copper-smelting furnaces of Cyprus, in the very midst of the fire, there is to be seen flying about a four-footed animal with wings, the size of a large fly: this creature is called the &#8221; pyrallis,&#8221; and by some the &#8221; pyrausta.&#8221; So long as it remains in the fire it will live, but if it comes out and flies a little distance from it, it will instantly die.\u201d (Nota bene \u2013 there are little blue \u201cforward\u201d and \u201cback\u201d arrows if you can&#8217;t get enough Pliny).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>The BugLady<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few days ago, the BugLady was mulling over which insect she was going to feature in the next BOTW. She headed out the door to hike to the mailbox, and there, on the inside of the storm door, trapped between it and the back door, sat this beautiful Small magpie moth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5995,"featured_media":11318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[8],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-11317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bug-of-the-week","tag-moths"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Field Station<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/bug-of-the-week\/small-magpie-mothmystery\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Small Magpie Moth Mystery\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few days ago, the BugLady was mulling over which insect she was going to feature in the next BOTW. 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