I couldn’t believe my luck! The most awesome find in my garden was pure magic. It was SO exciting, I probably wasted three seconds in open-mouthed stupor while my mind circled between disbelief and eye-mind cognizance before I began taking photos with my phone camera.
Lebeau’s silk moth, Rothschildia labeau: Initially, I thought the large oval windows on each wing were a lovely color of lime green. After researching the moth, I learned that those markings are transparent. The green in the photographs was from the colima leaves beneath the moth.
Here’s what bugguide.net had to say about Lebeau’s silk moth: Very large silk moth found only in South Texas. The range is Lower Rio Grande Valley, Hidalgo and Cameron counties and south into Mexico. Fairly common, especially around Brownsville.
Transparent triangular spots on the wings, wings are reddish brown to dark brown with olive tinge.
Larvae feed on several trees/shrubs, such as Ash (Fraxinus), prickly ash (Zanthoxylum), and willow (Salix). — Our native colima, also called Lime prickly ash, is classified thusly: (Zanthosylum fagara (L.) Sarg. Rutaceae (Citrus family). Other larval plant host include peach (Prunus persica), citrus (Citrus) and acacia (Acacia).
Habitat is thorn scrub. Adults may take two or three years before emerging from the pupa.
Life history, according to butterfliesandmoths.org: Adults do not feed. Adults emerge in the early evening and mating occurs from about 10 p.m. to midnight. Egg-laying begins the following evening and continues over several nights, with the females laying eggs in rows of three to six on the host plants. Young caterpillars feed in groups while older ones are solitary feeders. The cocoon hangs on a twig during the winter, attached by a strong silken stem.
For images of various instar views of Rothschildia lebeau caterpillar, the eggs, cocoon and adult moth, visit https://bugguide.net/node/view/28931/bgimage
I went back periodically throughout the morning, hoping the big moth was still there. I captured a photo from a different perspective.
It caught wind of me and fluttered to a low branch of a grapefruit tree about four feet from the colima.
After a few more photos, I left it in peace, hoping it was well hidden until it could go about its nightly business.
The next day, I had another exciting event. I’d been chasing those big yellow butterflies for several weeks. The Phoebis. I’ve photographed caterpillars of possibly the cloudless sulphur (Phoebis sennae) and the orange-barred sulphur (Phoebis philea) butterflies but could not manage to capture a shot of any of the adult big yellow butterflies.
The butterfly flights have been so erratic this spring, even when landing for nectar, they jet off within seconds, off to another part of the yard. And then, it happened! Not one, but two orange-barred butterflies flew past my face. I saw them land in the bamboo and got the shot!
Jump back to thinking about moths for a minute because coming up in July is an annual event: National Moth Week — July 18 – 26.
For more information visit: http://nationalmothweek.org/2020/05/15/nmw2020/ This is a Citizen Scientist activity that may count for TMN volunteer hours. Uploading photos of moths to iNaturalist.org also is countable volunteer hours as a Citizen Scientist activity.
Let us hear about some your startling and awesome garden finds.
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