Mothing Night (8.4.2025)

Last Monday night we did some family mothing. After some yummy S’mores and Jiffy Pop, our adult daughter, son-in-law, three year old grandson, Terri, and I hunted for caterpillars using blacklight flashlights. I also set up a mothing sheet. Our set up uses a stretched white sheet with both a reptile heat lamp (in lieu of a mercury vapor light) and a LED blacklight. We had a blast and our grandson did great exploring the plants with his flashlight!

While we did not find many caterpillars, we had 26 species of moths visit the mothing sheet! I stayed up late (1:15 am) hoping to see one of the large Saturniids but no luck.

Just a reminder that moths are very important nighttime pollinators!

All following identifications are based on iNaturalist submissions (not all are confirmed so they are tentative).

Caterpillars

We saw several Geometer moth caterpillars. They are twig mimics and quite good at it!

Moths

First, some favorites from the evening…

Pearly Wood-nymph Moth

Delicate Cycnia Moth

Maple Caloptilia Moth
This moth is very small (guessing 1/4 inch or less) and perches in an interesting way. The caterpillar is a leaf miner… it lives and feeds within the leaf!