280 days of Urbpandemonium 143

[urbpan]

For much of the moth night, this was the largest and most impressive moth at the light. But the moth experts (coolbugs, eumorphadream, and a guy named Kirk) kept looking at it and saying, oh that. Because it was the biggest moth there, every new person who encountered it said hey what's that big one?? And the moth experts would say, oh that. It's a "large yellow underwing" Noctua pronuba.* Why the disappointed reaction? They seemed excited at the prospect of other "underwings" showing up.

This underwing is an introduced invasive pest, an entirely different genus from North American underwings. This one has actually appeared on this journal before--but as a caterpillar. As a larva it is a garden pest called a cutworm--a caterpillar that overwinters, waking in spring to march across the waking earth cutting all the new growth down to nothing. Still it's kind of pretty as a moth.

* Night owl for the bride