Common Gluphisia
I photographed this one trying to hide its head under our house siding on August 1, 2010.
Eventually, I got it to flutter down to a patch of concrete where I could get pictures that included the head, with the big feathery antennae making it fairly clear that it was a male:
I’m not that good at identifying moths, so I went to BugGuide for an ID, and Maury Heiman recognized it as the Common Gluphisia, Gluphisia septentrionis.
The larvae eat the leaves of poplars, which are one of the most widespread trees in North America, and these moths are very widespread too – BugGuide says that they are found everywhere except Nunavut and the Northwest Territories (both of which are so cold that even poplars don’t grow well there). The Moth Photographers’ Group shows where specimens have been captured, and it certainly does look like they are all over the place.
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Just FYI: it’s almost National Moth Week!
Aw, geeze. National Moth Week is the week *after* my posting queue runs through the last of my old moth backlog!
Although, I’ve acquired some new moths in the past few weeks, so maybe there’s still time to write up a couple of this year’s moths and get them into the queue.
Nice! I’m guilty of not paying much attention to the little brown moths, but your photographs of this one really bring out how pretty it is.
I just discovered your blog – I’m in Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin, not really that far from you, and I post a lot of insect photos of my own. Always nice to find a fellow North Woods bug enthusiast.