RIVER WATCHER

THE MATTER OF MOTHS

Rex Burress

Alongside my chair, I had left a sealed plastic container with a couple leftover Cheerios, and to my surprise a few weeks later, I noticed half a dozen trapped food moths fluttering inside!

In the world of moths, some are beautiful, and some are bothersome, especially the kind that get in cereal boxes or into a food crop. The kind that like to chew on clothes are not very welcome either, and their plain, brownish bodies are not very pretty. Actually, it's not the fluttery flying house moths that do the damage, as the adults don't even have a mouth and live only a couple weeks. They fly to look for a mate and lay eggs before dying. The hungry hatched larvae are the culprits.

There are several species of 'Pantry Moths' in the Anagasta genus, and all of their larvae seek out anything grainy or nutty in the dark recesses of storage to keep the cycle going. This is not good when you find a webby cluster in your flour bin, infiltrated with the feces of the foul beast! Seal new foods in plastic, but even then the larvae can squeeze through any cracks.

Another nearby moth menace is the 'Webbing Clothes Moth,' [Tineola bissellietta] whose larvae chew on your woolens! A great adaptation but bad for clothes lovers. Even though some insects are interesting and beautiful, there is a segment of insectivory whose lifestyles conflict with civilization, hence the development of poisonous chemicals. Maybe good for one side but bad for the other.

Of the estimated one million species of insects on Earth, there are about 180,000 species of Lepidoptera, or butterflies and moths, with moths accounting for 160,000 of the number. We don't see moths as much as butterflies since they are mostly nocturnal and small, but some are huge and spectacular such as the Atlas Moth of Asia. Lepidoptera also features microscopic scales on the wings laid in place like hands with fingers pointed up. The beauty of the overlapping scales stirred an Entomologist, Stennet Heaton, into some pioneering 1965 micro photography of unexpected Lepidoptera wing dimensions for the Oakland Nature Center.

There are about 11,000 moth species in North America, and 750 butterflies. California has about 3,000 species of moths and 240 butterflies. The Ceanothus Silk Moth is among the most attractive and the Black Witch [Otosema] of Southern CA is the largest, as big as a bat and has the largest wingspan of any insect in the State. So much for numbers, but the distribution of life on Earth is quite intriguing. The diversity is worthy of widespread study, and for some, collecting.

Individual moth species exhibit some outlandish characteristics. Just in CA among the 3,000, there are Greasy Cutworms, Pussmoths, Pink-margined Green, Oak Winter Highflier, Yerba Santa Bird-dropping Moth, Blackberry Leaf Skeletonizer, Skin Miners, Omnivorous Looper [inch worm], and a moth to fit every condition.

The Bumble Bee Moth, [Hemaris] flies in the daytime and hovers at flowers for nectar. The Sand-dune Grasshopper Moth is a flightless moth that runs like a lizard, hops on dunes like a grasshopper, and 'swims' into the sand at night! The larvae have very short legs and attach to the stems of plants in silken tubes under the sand!

The White-lined Sphinx Moth is another daytime moth called the Hummingbird Moth, using a long tongue two-times the length of its body to probe tubular flowers. The horned brownish larvae sometimes occurs in great hordes that devour plants. The Tomato Hornworm is related but confined to tomato leaves. Wonders never cease, and remarkable moth and insects stories abound!

“People wrap themselves in smug cocoons/Of dogmas they believe are wise,/And look askance at one who sees,/In worms, potential butterflies.”--Eloise Wade Hackett

“And what's a butterfly? At best/It's but a caterpillar, dressed.”