The Moth Whisperer.

A few nights ago we forgot to turn the porch light off and in the morning there were all kinds of beautiful and unique looking moth hanging out on the side of the house. My daughter and i had fun looking up what each type of moth was and then decided to try leaving a different light on each night to see what we attracted. My daughter loves them, and is constantly holding them/carry them around and seeing how many she can get to walk on her hands without flying away. We've started calling her the moth whisperer.

The one is a Giant Leopard moth.   It's caterpillar is a Wooly bear type with a thick coat of black bristles and red or orange colored bands between its segments. They do not cause irritation like many caterpillars do. We've had several of these visit each night that a light is left on.

We find lots of Sphinx and Hawkmoths. Some are difficult to identify, but i believe these are a Small Eyed Sphinx and Virginia Creeper Sphinx.  

This one was huge! It is a Tulip-tree Silkmoth. This one looks similar to a few other large moths but is distinguished by the two T's on it's wings, which make it easy to remember the name Tulip Tree moth

Imperial Moth. We have found several of these. They are huge! My daughter calls them Banana Pepper moths. :) 

Two Imperial Moths and a Luna that was pretty beat up.  We were very excited to have attracted one though.

Then the very next day, we were visited by this lovely Luna Moth, this is the one we were waiting for and hoping to attract.  It's wings were perfect and it was so beautiful!!  It's been a really interesting experiment to see the different moths that we can attracted, the coolest of them so far have come from light on the south facing side of the house.

 My little moth whisperer has taken such an interest in them.  We'll probably continue to leave a light on each night throughout the summer to see what other amazing moths we can attract and identify. 

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous- Aristotle