Strange orange moth

My husband photographed this gigantic orange moth on a recent business trip. Thankfully, something this odd is usually pretty easy to identify on the internet. It didn't take long to find out that this is a Regal Moth, also known as Royal Walnut Moth, Citheronia regalis.



It would be odd enough if it were the size of a normal moth. But according to Wikipedia, this is the biggest moth north of Mexico. (That's weight, not wing span, though that's not shabby either.) In this lighter wide-angle view, you can compare him to the door hardware to see how large he is.

This was on the door of the hotel, so maybe he's a watch-moth. I know several people who would hesitate to open that door!

-----

Updated:
This one was found in Virginia, but they are at home anywhere in the east, I believe.

Submitted to the Friday Ark.

More spiny caterpillars

I had a difficult time identifying this caterpillar. It looked a lot like an American Painted Lady (Vanessa virginiensis), but not exactly the same. I couldn't find anything else that it resembled any more, though.



It's been a big year, as far as spiny/bristly caterpillars go. On the driveway today I spotted a Yellow Bear. Also a tiny, tiny shrew or vole. And me without my camera.

Spiny caterpillars

I've been seeing a lot of spiny caterpillars this spring.

It seems simplistic, but googling what something looks like, in very basic terms -- in this case, "black spiny caterpillar" -- works amazingly well, most of the time.



It brings up the site What's this North American Caterpillar, which spiffily shows my caterpillar on the front page.

And how exciting that this scary goth individual will turn into a Mourning Cloak butterfly!

This bristly guy below was a little more difficult.



But I think he becomes one of my favorites, a Question Mark butterfly.

I wasn't tempted in the least to touch either one of them!

Visit Wayne to see his spiny caterpillar siting too.

Fire and Ice

Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus).



Captured during his unannounced guest appearance at the Fire and Ice show¹.

Alabama Power's indiscriminate and ugly tree-removal policies have saddened me every time I drive this road.²



But when the sun warmed that questionably broad path, I was surprised at what popped up.



Wild hyacinths (Camassia scilloides). They dot the woods beyond the power lines, but this much sun exposure (and no late killing frost this year) caused a population explosion.

I doubt they'll last here long -- brush will dominate within a year or two, choking out anything this small.

But obviously, they can lie dormant, waiting for the day when they feel the sun again.

-----

¹Fire Pinks and Wild Hyacinths

²They don't practice quite so much dogwood-twisting tree torture in ritzy lawyer-heavy Birmingham suburbs, but out here in rural areas, I'm sure they figure no one of importance will mind.

-----

Friday Ark.

Summer camp

Away freeway trolls
and skull poison



Away chainsaw dogs
and anything downloadable



Welcome butterfly people and snake elves



unfamous artists
and freeform laughing



dark and beautiful
names that mean shadow



and drowsy bee biographers



Stand still long enough



Measure the angles of coyote eyes



Change your mind about
what is highly collectible



Get broken spiders back in love

Behind closed doors

Snout butterfly

It's all anyone ever mentions.

Poor Cyrano of butterflies, with his enormous... panache.



But that eye!

-----

A very agreeable butterfly:
Easy ID -- the only species with elongated labial palpi (the "snout"). Plus, the two front legs on the male are tiny, while the female's are normal.
Easy to predict mass migration -- long drought + lots of rain = lots of snout butterflies, especially in the southwest.

-----

Side Notes:

Libytheana bachmanii.

Mass migrations. We drove through one of these in south Texas in 1996.

Photos with wings open.

There is actually a Cyrano Darner.

-----

More critters at the Friday Ark.

Springy

Red admiral butterfly on Sweet cicely. (Vanessa atalanta on Osmorhiza longistylis.)

This is the same type of butterfly from last year's butterfly wrangling post.

I know that they are widespread, but somehow it still surprised me to see a picture of one on a blog from Israel that I ran across recently. (Lots of nice flower and cat pics there too.)

-----

Technical note: Yesterday's bluebird post was MIA for most of the day due to Blogger problems, sorry!

It will probably be Rurality Lite for a while due to several things (none of which are bad news). Some obnoxious bragging coming up soon about one of them.

Buckeye

Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia)

Dark and Beautiful

I always get the dark butterflies mixed up. Three in this area are similar:

Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor),
Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) and
the black form female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus).

But I think this one is the latter.

The plant she's on is White crownbeard (Verbesina virginica). (It's the same as Frostflowers plant from back in February.)

It's curious that only some Eastern Tiger Swallowtail females are dark - to mimic the poisonous Pipevine Swallowtail - and some are not. They seem to have several successful strategies to avoid getting eaten: the young caterpillars resemble bird droppings, the mature caterpillar has large false eyespots, and the chrysalis looks like a stick. So why after all that trouble, wouldn't you want to turn black and look poisonous?

Maybe the male butterflies prefer blondes.

Butterfly wrangling

A Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta) was attracted to some moisture on a cardboard box. I believe he was newly emerged, since he looked nearly perfect and wasn't too afraid of me.



His close-up.



He seemed very thirsty.

I had an idea.

I dipped my finger into a puddle then snuck up slowly.



Ta-da!



His feet were very sticky. This really tickles.



I taught my husband how to do it too.



The admiral sunbathed for a moment before he left.



Red Admirals are common and widespread: Guatemala north through Mexico and the United States to northern Canada; Hawaii, some Caribbean Islands, New Zealand, Europe, Northern Africa, the Middle East and Asia! I imagine that they do so well because the caterpillar's food plant is the nettle.

More info here, here, and here.

Wild Critters

Today it's raining buckets, so here are some pictures from earlier in the week.


Male Falcate Orange Tip butterflies jousting for the attention of a female.


A green anole that kept a close watch on me. Like a chameleon, he can change color in the blink of an eye (from drab brown to bright green). This one was not willing to demonstrate.


Some tiny snails in the creek. I don't have a book that descibes snails but if anyone knows their name please leave a comment or email me.


These muskrats were too far away to get a good picture. I really should learn to tie up the dog if I'm going to try sneaking up on wild critters.

If you look closely you can see the very long tail of the one on the left - it's shining in the sun.

Southern butterflies and you

With a few days in the 70s, the butterflies have popped in during the past week.

We've seen:

Spring Azure
Falcate Orange Tip
Pearl Crescent
Hop Merchant (a.k.a. Eastern Comma)
Cabbage White

Butterflies have such cool names.

Even when the butterflies themselves are nothing to write home about, the names are often fantastic.

Thumbing through my field guide, some names I love include:

Satyr Anglewing
Hoary Comma
Ringless Blue Cracker
Mexican Eighty-Eight
Cloudless Sulphur
Question Mark
Antillean Dagger Wing
Flashing Astraptes
Whirlabout
Malicious Shady Skipper

and my favorite:

Redundant Swarthy Skipper.

There is an interesting Hans Christian Andersen story about a butterfly who wished for a bride.

It contains the sentence, "The pea-blossom pleased him most of all; she was white and red, graceful and slender, and belonged to those domestic maidens who have a pretty appearance, and can yet be useful in the kitchen."

Hmm.

After having "been too long choosing, which is always a bad plan," the indecisive butterfly winds up stuck on a pin in a box of curiosities.

"Now I am perched on a stalk, like the flowers," he says. "It is not very pleasant, certainly; I should imagine it is something like being married; for here I am stuck fast."

I really have to wonder about Hans Christian Andersen sometimes.