100 Species #100: Winter moth

[urbpan]

This female winter moth Operophtera brumata came into the house resting on my arm, after I had been outside doing some yard work. I squealed and brushed it onto the kitchen floor, then realized it was just a moth with horribly vestigial wings.

The female winter moth has little stubs where wings should be. She crawls up from her buried pupa to the base of a tree or other object and lets her pheromones and the winged male do the rest of the work. The males are some of the only conspicuous insects active at this time of the year. Driving in the evenings, your headlights will illuminate little clouds of the beasts, looking like tiny autumn leaves or dirt-colored snow flurries. Leave your porch light on and you will find dozens clustered about. This European pest has been devouring trees on both the northeast and northwest coasts of North America for about forty years.

This species was 365 Urban Species #85 and in two Urban Nature Pictures (as larva and as a male adult). There's a serious chance that I misidentified 100 species #50 and it's a winter moth caterpillar, not a spring cankerworm. Spring cankerworms and Bruce spanworms are native look-a-likes to the winter moth.


The same female, brought back outside.


Some of the 56 males that had gathered around our porch light that evening.

Comments

[weofodthignen]

Heh, it's something of a relief to see that you also squeal when mysterious living things turn out to have hitched a ride on your body. She looks inoffensive, but if she is going to lay 4 bazillion eggs that will hatch to defoliate trees, I'm not sure I'm glad you returned her to her habitat :-)

And congrats on completing the project!

M

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I followed up my act of soft-heartedness by killing many of the males that took up residence around the porch light.