Tag Archives: moths

Glamorous Moths #7 – Pine Carpenterworm

Givira lotta, the Pine Carpenterworm moth. I have a soft spot for large, fuzzy moths. This one is a member of the Carpenter and Leopard moths. From Wikipedia:

The Cossidae, the cossid millers or carpenter millers, make up a family of mostly large miller moths. This family contains over 110 genera with almost 700 known species, and many more species await description. Carpenter millers are nocturnal Lepidoptera found worldwide, except the Southeast Asian subfamily Ratardinae, which is mostly active during the day.

Pinned adult moth uploaded to iNaturalist.org by Ronald Parry

This moth is found in California Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado and most likely in pine forest areas of northern Mexico.

Adult pine carpenterworm moth uploaded to iNaturalist.org by C Mallory

Larvae feed on outer bark of ponderosa pine. I couldn’t find a caterpillar picture in this genus on iNaturalist. Here’s an example of another species in Family Cossidae.

Goat Moth caterpillar uploaded by Sergey Mayorov to iNaturalist.org

Glamorous Moths #6 – Rothschildia Silk Moth

Our sixth featured moth is Rothschildia cinctus. They are found from southern Arizona to Panama.

Rothschildia cinctus on iNaturalist.org seen by Priscila Moreno in Tamaulipas, Mexico

According to Wikipedia: Saturniinae is a subfamily of the family Saturniidae. They are commonly known as emperor moths or wild silk moths. They are easily spotted by the eyespots on the upper surface of their wings. Some exhibit realistic eye-like markings, whilst others have adapted the eyespots to form crescent moon or angular shapes or have lost their wing scales to create transparent windows. They are medium to very large moths, with adult wingspans ranging from 7.5 to 15 cm, in some cases even more. They consist of some of the largest sized Lepidoptera, such as the luna moth, atlas moth, and many more.

Rothschildia prionia caterpillar (related to R cinctus) posted by alenilson on iNaturalist.org

In Arizona, these silk moths use Hopseed Bush, Dodonaea viscosa, as a larval host. You can read more about this plant at Arizona Living Landscape & Design (landscapearizona.com)

Musings from an Albuquerque Pollinator Paradise

If you’re reading this from New Mexico, the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge Grand Opening of Visitor Center and 10th Birthday is on Saturday, September 10th, about a month away. I hope you’ll join us!

It’s summer in New Mexico and it’s hot and dry. Not as hot as Phoenix, thankfully! We received nice rain in June and July to break a massive dry spell – 65% of New Mexico is classified as ‘Severe Drought’ or worse, compared with 96% 3 months ago – but I’m always hoping for more. Most days the clouds build up and merely tease us with a chance of rain. Sunflowers are thriving, so my yard (and driveway) is a beautiful mess of yellow.

Prairie sunflowers, Helianthus petiolaris

I’ve dedicated more time to nocturnal critters this summer. It’s super rewarding to check the porch lights for moths and find a new one. So many cool insects hang out at night if you go and look.

Male Douglas Fir tussock moth, Orgyia pseudotsugata
Adult Chaetoleon pusillus antlion

There are plenty of diurnal critters too. Wasps (yes, wasps!) in all sizes and colors and a few new native bees for my yard list are among the highlights. It is lovely to sit outside with my camera, surrounded by nature. I enjoy watching bees collecting pollen, wasps hunting for a meal, and hummingbirds chasing each other.

Iridescent female parasitic wasp, Leucospis birkmani
An unexpected surprise: White-belted Ringtail dragonfly, Erpetogomphus compositus
Male American sand wasp, Bembix americana

Quick Biodiversity Update

iNaturalist is an invaluable resource for identifying wildlife and tracking my sightings. The numbers of species from my April blog post are in parentheses.

  • 190 butterflies and moths (59)
  • 93 flies (58)
  • 90 ‘true bugs’ [Hemiptera] (50)
  • 87 beetles (37)
  • 85 bees (75)
  • 81 wasps (45)
  • 29 spiders (21)
  • 14 antlions and lacewings [Neuroptera] (not mentioned before)
  • 3 mayflies (1)

Musings from a Phoenix Pollinator Garden

7June22 Blood-colored Milkweed Bug, Tarantula Hawk Wasp, Queen Butterfly, Ceraunus Blue Butterfly, Great Horned Owl

The beauty of a pollinator garden is a two-edged wand:

  • The reward of knowing you are contributing to the health of the ecosystem that you inhabit
  • The treasure hunt of discovering the web of characters that visit your paradise

In the previous installments of this post I presented the blank slate layout of our garden along with the ideas that drove the implementation of the garden. In these next installments I’ll be sharing the visitors to the garden, and in the process also showing the plants and structures that define the spaces.

Blood-colored Milkweed Bug on Desert Milkweed

There have been discussions about whether milkweed bugs are a friend or foe in the garden, but personally I haven’t found them to cause significant harm and I consider them part of the self-balancing ecosystem of the garden.

Although it may appear that your garden has only one or two varieties of milkweed bugs, closer observation is likely to reveal more diversity. Our garden also has Large Milkweed Bugs, Water Small Milkweed Bugs and Southern Small Milkweed bugs.

New World Tarantula-hawk Wasps on Desert Milkweed

These wasps can be quite intimidating, flying like military helicopters in the garden, but they take little interest in humans. They do seem to love the Desert Milkweeds (Asclepius subulata) and Desert Willows. As the name implies, these wasps hunt tarantulas, and there must be a lot of tarantulas around because the garden is currently a-buzz with these wasps. I love tarantulas, so I’m keeping the faith that eco-balance is holding steady.

Queen on Desert Milkweed

So if there is any doubt about the versatility of milkweeds in the garden, it should be apparent at this point that they serve as more than host plants for Monarch and Queen butterflies.

Queens are aptly named, so regal and beautiful! Last year I “rescued” a caterpillar right before a cold snap and raised it indoors: The Making of a Queen.

Ceraunus Blue on Baja Fairyduster

Blues are tiny wonders in the garden, and you need to be up close to appreciate their beauty and differences. The top side of the wings are blue for males, but females vary from blue to silvery-blue to brown. Host plants for the Ceraunus Blue include legumes like Mesquites and Acacias.

Great Horned Owl in a Sissoo Tree

Also known as the “tiger of the air” this owl primarily hunts rabbits and hares, rats and mice, and voles. One look at those talons and it’s clear this is a very capable predator, and it will hunt whatever it can overtake.

I was very excited to see this owl swoop into the tree during daylight hours, and even more fortunate to have camera at hand. Local nesting birds were pestering the owl, trying to protect their nests I would guess, but the owl was unflappable and stayed in the same spot for hours.

Glamorous Moths #5 – Penstemonia

The way that gardeners feel about moths and butterflies is often quite different, despite how closely related they are. We are happy to grow milkweed to attract Monarchs and allow the caterpillars to devour whole plants. Weed is in the name milkweed, so I think we value the plant more for its role in the Monarch’s life cycle. On the other hand, who ever heard of growing corn to attract Helicoverpa zea or tomatoes to encourage Manduca sexta?

Perhaps the most despised moth is the peach tree borer, which “bring major harm to important fruit-crop trees, destroying the tree’s vascular system through boring and girdling while inducing plant pathogens to invade the weakened tree” (Source). That’s terrible, right? How dare those selfish moths cripple our precious fruit trees?

Without further ado, I would like to introduce the Penstemon clearwing, also known as the Beardtongue borer.

Penstemonia clarkei, Clarke’s Penstemon clearwing, seen in Los Alamos, New Mexico

Penstemonia is a genus of moths in western North America (presumably including northern Mexico) in the family Sessiidae (clearwing moths). [Quick sidenote: Hemaris clearwing moths are in the hawk moth family, Sphingidae.]

Clearwing moths often resemble wasps and bees in coloration and marking. They have elongate wings, often transparent owing to the lack of scales. Most of the larvae are borers in the limbs, trunks, bark, or roots of trees, shrubs, herbs and vines (like the infamous peach tree borer). Some bore in galls on woody or herbaceous plants. Majority of adults take nectar. [Source: bugguide.net]

What about our Penstemon clearwing? 

There are at least 5 species of Penstemonia in North America. Larval feeding is probably limited to Penstemon or closely related plant species in Cheloneae. (I’ve discussed Penstemon plants on the blog before: https://pollinatorweb.com/meet-the-plants-more-beardtongues/). The larva will be found within a stem [or roots] at crown level and damage appears as a wilting or dieback of individual stems. Pupation is probably in the soil at the base of plants, but there is no description of them. [Source: Colorado State University Extension (colostate.edu)]

I have a feeling that populations of Penstemonia moths will start to increase and spread as more gardeners grow native, drought tolerant beardtongue plants. I hope you will welcome these pollinators into your yards with open arms.

Musings from a Phoenix Pollinator Garden

Design: North Side Yard

Welcome back! This is the second installment in this series – in the previous post I presented the history of the project and the design considerations for the South Side Yard – you can view that post here.

The side yard on the north side of the house has two separate microclimates. The area near the house gets sun in the summer, including late afternoon sun, but during the late fall until early spring, no sun hits the landscape because it’s shaded by the house. Selecting plants for this area can be a challenge, but with some judicious selections the summer sun can be moderated. This area will also be responsible for retaining and controlling water runoff from the roof.

Towards the block fence the sun exposure is more consistent, especially for taller shrubs and trees. The goal here is to have a xeriscape and walkways, similar in design to a botanical garden.

Northwest Side Yard

On the west end of the side yard there is a mild need for privacy screening, but a much stronger need for shade since the late afternoon summer sun comes blazing over the front gate. You can almost feel the heat radiating from the dirt in this early afternoon picture. So we’ll be using trees and shrubs to create some microclimates for plants and people.

Northeast Side Yard

The east end of the side yard has two large 2-story homes, both with second story balconies, so privacy is a big consideration. Screening will be accomplished with trees and shrubs.

Coming up:

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Musings from a Phoenix Pollinator Garden

Blank Slate

Landscaping a bare earth tract home backyard into a taste of paradise, then evolving it to support pollinators and the web of characters that support an ecosystem. This is the first of a series of posts to share the story of discovery and a labor of love.

It’s 2019, and after 9 months of searching for a resale home, we ended up purchasing a new tract home further out than we wanted, but availability and price aligned to a relative sweet spot, and we made the leap.

(A View from the Rearview Mirror: A great bit of luck, that leap. Who knew a pandemic was on the horizon, and home prices would begin to see upward price pressure that was unimaginable. In fact, when the pandemic first hit, the developer began discounting homes due to lack of demand.)

We had just moved to Phoenix from the midwest and I had taken some landscape classes at the Desert Botanical Garden to learn about plant selection, irrigation and water conservation, so this project would put the newfound knowledge to good use.

I wasn’t, however, yet aware of the importance of native plants to support pollinators in the yard. So the foundational landscape that we designed and planted was focused on a botanical garden style xeriscape with oasis elements. Tuning the landscape for pollinators came later, after the pandemic hit and I became involved with the MetroPhoenix EcoFlora iNaturalist project (more on that later) and the Maricopa Native Seed Library.

South Side Yard Design

South Side Yard (A/C wall of house faces 191 degrees South)

A blank slate can be daunting, as shown above in our initial “scorched earth” yard. This side yard faces slightly off from 180 degrees south, so it gets lots of winter sun. Because of the way the sun travels, however, it also gets late afternoon summer sun, which is the hardest on plants.

A two story home with a second story balcony, and a next door home that’s close to the fence, guided us to design for privacy along the fence line. Another design element would be a pool to make the summers more enjoyable and to add an oasis in the desert aesthetic. We also wanted walking paths to give the yard a botanical garden feel.

And of course, water conservation is a necessary and practical aspect of the design. To efficiently deliver water to the plants I decided to use multiple zones of drip irrigation, and since rain water (hopefully the monsoons will return in 2022!) is the best hydrator for plants, the design will incorporate swales to retain water shed from the roof, which drains along the wall with the A/C unit.

Coming up:

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Glamorous Moths #4 – Southern Flannel Moth

Wide ranging across the southern USA and northern Mexico, the Southern Flannel moth, Megalopyge opercularis, is this week’s featured moth. Read more here, if you’re interested: Megalopyge opercularis (ufl.edu). Flannel moths are in Superfamily Zygaenoidea with Jewel Caterpillar moths, like Dalcerides.

Male Megalopyge opercularis by Judy Aschner on iNaturalist.org

It’s larval food plants are mostly oak trees and some Manzanita species in Arizona and Mexico. The caterpillar is small and hairy like adults and it would be really cool to find one in the wild, so please let us know if you see any!

Southern Flannel caterpillar by Diana Foreman on iNaturalist.org

Glamorous Moths #3 – ‘Colorado’ Yucca Moth

This is the third post in a semi-regular series of interesting, colorful, and unique moths of Arizona and New Mexico. Today, I’d like to introduce you to yucca moths.

Prodoxus coloradensis © BJ Stacey on iNaturalist.org

Yucca moths are in the Family Prodoxidae and found across the USA and Mexico. They are a spring and summer moth, timing their flights with blooms of different plants in the Agave family (Asparagaceae). Prodoxus coloradensis is found from southern California to West Texas and north along the front range of Colorado. It’s black stripes are a bold contrast to many plain, white yucca moth species.

Yucca moth caterpillar © Bill Harms on iNaturalist.org

Like all desert blooms, Joshua trees depend on just the perfect conditions: well-timed rains, and for the Joshua tree, a crisp winter freeze. Researchers believe that freezing temperatures may damage the growing end of a branch and stimulate flowering, followed by branching. You may notice some Joshua trees grow like straight stalks; these trees have never bloomed—which is why they are branchless! In addition to ideal weather, the pollination of flowers requires a visit from the yucca moth. The moth collects pollen while laying her eggs inside the flower ovary. As seeds develop and mature, the eggs hatch into larvae, which feed on the seeds. The tree relies on the moth for pollination and the moth relies on the tree for a few seeds for her young—a happy symbiosis. 

Source: https://www.nps.gov/jotr/learn/nature/jtrees.htm

Glamorous Moths #2 – White-lined Sphinx

This is the second post in a semi-regular series of interesting, colorful, and unique moths of Arizona and New Mexico. Today’s inspiration comes from a brief encounter last Friday. I was at an orchard and a White-lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata), was getting nectar from plum flowers mid-afternoon.

Hyles lineata visiting Lantana in Phoenix © George Roark

These strong fliers are members of Family Sphingidae – the sphinx, hawk, and hummingbird moths. They are active at dusk (occasionally daytime) and can hover like hummingbirds instead of landing on flowers.

“Hornworm” caterpillar of Hyles lineata © Kevin Faccenda on iNaturalist.org

This insect has a wide host range. Some of the plants utilized as host plants in the Midwest include apple, evening primrose (Oenothera spp.), four-o’clocks (the common annual Mirabilis jalapa and wild four-o’clock, M. nyctaginea), fuchsia, Gaura lindheimeri, grape, pentas, purslane, tomato, and willow-weed (Epilobium). Other native plants are used elsewhere, such as sand verbena (Abronia umbellate), wishbone plant (Mirabilis californica and other species of Mirabilis), and brown-eyed evening primrose (Camissonia claviformis ssp. piersonii) in the desert Southwest and toothed spurge (Euphorbia dentate) in Texas.

Source: https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/white-lined-sphinx-moth-hyles-lineata/

Glamorous Moths #1 – Dalcerides ingenita

This is the first post in a new, semi-regular series of interesting, colorful, and unique moths of Arizona and New Mexico. The first post is inspired by Ronald Parry’s talk I saw on Zoom last week (recording here on Youtube). In the USA, the label “moths” represent over 90% of all Lepidoptera species, but butterflies get most of the attention. We can save the Monarchs and appreciate/support their overlooked “cousins” too!

Dalcerides ingenita caught in Gila National Forest, NM © Ronald Parry

Dalcerides ingenita (no common name yet) is the only species in the moth family Dalceridae that makes it north of the USA-Mexico border. The caterpillars are covered in a gelatinous material to deter parasites and predators. The larval host plants are manzanita and native Emory’s and Blue oaks.

Dalcerides caterpillar © Juan Fernando Martínez Andrade on iNaturalist.org

What should I plant for the most pollinators?

As much as possible! Okay, that’s not much of an answer.

First, which kinds of pollinators do you want to attract?

Hummingbirds – red tubular Penstemon and Acanthus flowers work great.

Bees – sunflowers are your best bet.

Butterflies and moths aren’t so picky, but you’ll want to provide host plants, like milkweed for Monarchs.

Left: Male longhorn bees (genus Melissodes) shelter overnight on sunflowers (Helianthus)

Right: Spiny goldenweed (Xanthisma spinulosum) volunteers in author’s yard

Where can I buy these plants? Check out our new page here: pollinatorweb.com/host-plants/native-plant-nurseries/

Also, don’t kill all the “weeds” in your yard. Many native plants are dispersed by wind and birds and will grow on their own if given a chance.