Oblique Banded Leafroller
This moth came to our porch light on September 1, 2025. I thought it was probably something I had already photographed, but I took the picture anyway just in case. But, it turns out I hadn’t already photographed this, at least not as an adult. It is an Oblique-Banded Leafroller, Choristoneura rosaceana. Their caterpillars mainly feed on leaves of trees that are related to apples and pears.
And when I mentioned that I hadn’t photographed this as an adult, I said that because I have photographed the caterpillar, which I posted back in 2015.
This one was eating our pear tree. We normally have quite a number of these caterpillars on the pear trees, which are less than 50 feet from our back porch. So, there are very good odds that this moth came from those trees, and didn’t fly very far at all.
They are something of a pest of fruit trees if they get too numerous, but so far we haven’t really had a problem with them. In general, as long as a tree doesn’t lose more than maybe a quarter of its leaves to caterpillars, it is OK. Their main defense against being eaten by birds is that the roll themselves up inside of a leaf, and they aren’t toxic or distasteful as far as I can tell. So once birds figure out that a rolled-up pear leaf has a tasty snack inside, I think they do a fair job of keeping these under control.