No Ugly Forest Moths

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- Hi, Sanford Smith here with Penn State Extension.

Today, I'm joined by John D. Laskowski, and John is otherwise known as The Moth Man.

John has specialized in studying moths for years.

He was a school teacher and an educator in many different ways, and usually, it's about moths and their important features, their characteristics, their biology, and their life cycles.

John, why are you so interested in moths?

- Well, I love these organisms, and there's always something new to learn about them.

So here, I have a male luna moth that was attracted to a night lighting episode last night, and this is a beautiful creature, and I hope you have the opportunity to see one of these live yourself.

- John, I suspect that some people think moths and butterflies are pretty much the same kind of organism, but how do they differ?

- Well, taxonomically, butterflies have a longer antenna than the moth's, and the moth's antennas tend to be branched and filamentous, look like a little feather, and if you look at this male, you'll see that the antenna is quite wide, whereas, if this was a female, it would be very narrow, and the body of the male is quite small, whereas, if this was a female, it would be much plumper, containing about 150 eggs.

- Okay, generally, moths are active at night or in the dawn or dusk, is that right?

- That is correct.

- Yeah, and the butterflies in the day.

- Yes, the day flying moths, such as Hemaris Thysbe, the hummingbird clearwing moth, will be attracted to garden flowers, and it's amazing how many people never realize it's not really a hummingbird.

- [Sanford] Right, they even sound a little like hummingbird, don't they?

- [John] Yeah, the wing beat is very rapid.

- So what are some of the pros and cons to moths, so to speak?

I understand that they serve a lot of important ecological functions, but sometimes, people complain about moths.

- Well, I've termed them the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the good moths are, of course, food for other organisms.

So a lot of birds relish moths and caterpillars as they go through their lifecycle, and moths at night are food for many other organisms, rodents, skunks, possums, whatever can grab them.

- Right, do moths do anything in regards to pollinating plants, or is that mostly just the purview of a butterfly?

- Well, the day-flying moths and night-flying moths of the Sphingidae group are nectar-feeding organisms.

So they absolutely do pollinate a lot of flowers.

The bad moths that you may be familiar with would be the gypsy moth, the eastern tent caterpillar, or if you have conifer vegetation in your yards, be wary of the bag worms.

- [Sanford] What are the ugly moths?

- [John] There are no ugly moths.

- [Sanford] Now, last night, we set up a large, white sheet screen with lights on it to draw in moths, and if there's one thing we found was that we attracted thousands of little insects and as well as little moths, and then look at this diversity of moths.

How do they compare?

Are there more types of moths than there are butterflies?

- [John] Yes, there's about 4,000 moths in North America, and there's about 750 butterflies in North America.

- [Sanford] Oh, so that's a much more common then.

- Yes. - Yeah, right, and a lot of the moths are very small, sort of hard, nondescript, but actually when you view them up more closely, they're quite beautiful.

- Yes, if you look at a very small moth with a magnifying glass, you'll see the real beauty of many of these that a lot of people never get the opportunity to appreciate.

- Yeah, now we're with one of your friends here today.

This is a luna moth.

- [John] Well, lunas are probably our second most prevalent moth in Pennsylvania, a larger moth.

They are hosted on a variety of trees, especially black walnut.

- [Sanford] Luna moths are beautiful, they're colorful like this, and they have these little markings right up here.

What do those resemble?

- [John] There's mimicry in terms of the design on the wings of a number of the moths that would depict an eye situation of a predator so that a predator would see the eye, that's called a super normal stimuli, and avoid preying on that insect, because they assume it's another predator larger than them.

- So, tell us about other moths of importance, and I understand two things.

One is we have the largest moth of North America living here in Pennsylvania and the largest larvae of a moth living here in Pennsylvania.

- [John] Yes, and there are different species.

The largest moth is the cecropia moth, Hyalophora Cecropia.

The largest caterpillar is the caterpillar of the royal walnut moth, and its nickname is "Hickory Horned Devil".

They get up to seven, seven and a half inches long, thicker than my thumb, a beautiful specimen.

- [Sanford] It's a fascinating thing studying moths.

- Yes, I encountered my first luna moth, actually, at a farm mercury vapor light, and I was about four-years-old, and I've been enamored by moths ever since.

- John, thank you very much for joining me today and sharing the best - Well, thank you - about moths. - for the opportunity.

- It's been pleasure.

We've been friends for many years, and it's good to get on video together, and I wanna thank you folks for listening, and I hope you'll watch another video soon.