Putnam’s Looper
Another moth from around the porch light on August 10, 2014. This one was reddish-brown, with a prominent tuft behind the head and two distinct white spots on the wings.
After rummaging through the Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America, I believe that this moth is Putnam’s Looper, Plusia putnami.
Their caterpillars eat grass.
Aside from being somewhat attractive moths, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in them. As a cold-tolerant species that isn’t too fussy about what they eat, they’ve colonized all the way around the Northern Hemisphere. We probably have a lot more of them around than it looks like from the ones that come to our porch light, because they evidently aren’t as strongly drawn to lights as some other moths.
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I wonder if the tuft behind the head turns laminar airflow over the head turbulent around the middle of the body. If that’s the case, the thing would impede flight. Dig this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691930/
That is an interesting paper. Hm. It shouldn’t be too hard to make a low-speed wind tunnel like that . . .