Some Favorite Moths

     A couple of times over the years in the eastern United States, while pumping gas into my car, I noticed a dead luna moth on the blacktop by the pump.  Those moths were attracted to and fluttered around large night lights until they ran out of energy and died.  And a few times here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, over the years, I saw a luna moth fluttering in the gathering darkness of deciduous woods, looking like a tiny, floating ghost.
     Some of my favorite moths are I O moths, so-named for markings on their hind wings, lunas and rosy maples.  They all have traits in common, including being attracted to outdoor lights, having furry bodies, being brightly colored, not feeding as adult moths, dying soon after egg-laying and being active only at night.  Males of each species have large, feathery antennae to readily sense pheromones released by females to bring the genders together for mating.  And all these pretty and interesting moths live in the eastern half of the United States and survive the winter as pupae.
     I think moths, like butterflies and many other species of insects, go through a four-stage metamorphosis, from egg to larvae, pupa and adult, so they can travel distances to find mates.  Caterpillars do fine feeding and growing, but when it comes time to reproduce, they can't travel far at all.  But with wings they develop in the pupa stage, they can fly long distances to find mates to reproduce themselves. 
    I O moths are my very favorite moth species.  Each moth has a three inch wing span.  Males have yellow bodies and fore wings while females have reddish-brown bodies and front wings.  Both genders of this species are plain when their wings are closed.  But when they suddenly open their wings in alarm, a would-be predator is startled by what looks like the face of an owl.  Each hind wing has a large, dark spot that resembles an eye.  In fact, the I O name came from a black, curved line halfway around each "eye", the I, and the round dark spot, the O.  There also is a white spot in each black circle that resembles light reflected in the "eye".
     There is one brood of I O larvae a year in the north.  Each female protrudes a scent gland from her rear to emit pheromones into the air.  Males use their antennae to find the females and mate with them.  Each female lays a couple hundred eggs on the caterpillars' plant foods, around 20 in each cluster.  I O larvae eat the leaves of cherry, red maple, sweet gum, red bud and other kinds of trees, and the foliage of sweet clovers, white clover, roses and other types of vegetation.
     I O caterpillars are gregarious and feed in clusters for their protection.  They are light orange when small, but become green with two lateral stripes on each side, a red one above a white one.  These larvae also grow many clusters of green spines that release painful venom when touched.
     I O larvae spin flimsy cocoons of dark silk in leaf litter or wrapped in living leaves in trees.  Those leaves eventually die and fall to the leaf litter below, still containing the leaf-brown cocoons.  Their the pupae overwinter.
     Luna moths have four to five inch wing spans and are lime-green.  This species has long, tapering back wings that are graceful.  And each moth has a small eye spot on each of its four wings.  Each female lays 400 to 600 eggs, four to seven at a time, under the leaves of host trees in woodlands, including birches, alders, hickories, walnuts, sumacs and other kinds of trees.  The green larvae, that also have bristles, are gregarious at first, but later live and feed alone.  Each caterpillar spins a thin cocoon in leaf litter and is a red-brown pupa in it over winter.
     Rosy maple moths have two inch wing spans, pale-yellow bodies, pink legs and pink and yellow wings with no eye spots.  Their green larvae have lengthwise, white stripes and short, black spines.  These caterpillars eat the leaves of red and silver maples, hence their name.  Again, these larvae are gregarious at first, but later feed alone.               
     These moths, and other species, are beautiful and interesting here in the United States.  But they are not seen much because of their nocturnal habits and not living more than a week or a little more.  Look for them at night around night lights, or by day resting on a tree trunk or some other object.