Latest news with #Lepidoptera
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
It's miller moth season in Colorado – an entomologist explains why they're important and where they're headed
It is spring on the Front Range of Colorado, which means before long the region will receive an influx of many, many moths. Colorado is home to thousands of species of moths, many of which are hatching out from a winter of hibernation, known as diapause. At night, porch lights, stadium lights and street lamps are regularly visited by moths, a collective term for most of the nocturnal members of the insect order called Lepidoptera. Butterflies are also part of this order, but they are mostly diurnal, or active during the day. Butterflies are actually just a subset of moths, so all butterflies are moths, but not all moths are butterflies. The Front Range lies on the path of a springtime migration of a particularly familiar species of moth, usually referred to in this part of the country, including Colorado and neighboring states, as 'miller moths.' Miller moth caterpillars are often called the 'army cutworm,' a whimsical name referring to the caterpillars' tendency to reach large numbers that march across fields and roads to find food. Both the moths and their caterpillars are rather drab and brown in color, though the moths are variable in patterning. Many people find miller moths to be a nuisance, and the caterpillars can be a pest. But miller moths are a native species to Colorado and play important roles across the plains and up into the high country. I am an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology as well as the curator of the entomology collection at the University of Colorado's Natural History Museum in Boulder. I study moths from around the world. I have a particular fascination for the large moth group known as Noctuoidea, the superfamily to which miller moths and their relatives belong. As an entomologist, I crisscross the state looking for moths for my ongoing evolutionary, classification and life history studies. During miller moth migrations, they may swarm my moth traps, which are made up of a bright light in front of a white sheet. The crush of miller moths makes finding the less common species that I am looking for all the more challenging in a sea of dusty brown. In temperate regions like most of North America, most moth species hibernate in the cold winter months. During this time, they are in a dormant pupal stage. Some species spin cocoons. They then hatch into adult moths, mate, lay eggs, and those caterpillars grow during the spring and summer. Come fall, the cycle starts over. While miller moths also have a hibernation period, it is not like that of most moths. Miller moths instead spend their winters on the plains of eastern Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska and nearby states as partially grown caterpillars, rather than a pupa, having gotten a head start on feeding in the late summer. This puts the caterpillars at an advantage. As soon as the weather warms and low-lying crops like wheat and alfalfa produce new, nutrient-rich foliage during the early spring, the caterpillars are right there ready to feast and may cause serious damage to the crops in outbreak years. Pupation then occurs later in the spring, and unlike in most Lepidoptera, the adult moths hatch without an extended pupal diapause, and instead begin to migrate west. They travel more than 100 miles (roughly 160 kilometers) toward higher elevations to seek out flowering plants, feeding on nectar and pollinating as they go. This migration is where folks on the Front Range become all too familiar with these weary travelers, who seek out narrow spaces to rest, often crawling into gaps in cars and homes. Inside a home, miller moths don't feed, reproduce or lay eggs. Sudden agitation of the resting moths may cause them to fly about to seek out a new spot to hide – that is, if your house cat doesn't see them first. If they do make their way inside, they can be easily swept into a cup or jar and let outside. People on the Front Range experience a second run-in with these moths after they finish their summer of feeding in the mountains and head back to the plains to lay their eggs in the fields from August to September. The importance of pollinators is familiar to many Coloradans. The state offers many resources and groups to help create spaces to attract butterflies and bees, including an initiative that designated Interstate Highway 76 as the 'Colorado Pollinator Highway'. But pollination does not stop when the sun goes down. In fact, moths make up the largest percentage of pollinators in terms of number of species globally – more than bees and butterflies combined. But scientists have yet to figure out which plants miller moths pollinate. Despite the importance of moths as pollinators to agriculture and ecology, by comparison to bees, for example, we know exceedingly little about nocturnal pollinators. Of the thousands of moth species in Colorado, many hundreds remain unknown to science. One of the reasons scientists study moths is to literally shed a light on these insects in the environment to see what they are doing. My work aims to understand what certain moths eat in their caterpillar stage, but other researchers, and my colleague Dr. Julian Resasco, at the University of Colorado Boulder, study what plants the adults are feeding on as they pollinate. Moths are among the primary airborne insects at night, playing a significant, and perhaps leading, role in insect-feeding bat diets. During their migration to the mountains, there are so many miller moths that they are a substantial protein- and fat-rich meal for animals as large as bears. Considering that we still know so little about moths, it's important to realize that light pollution, habitat loss and agricultural chemicals are all impacting moth numbers, resulting in annual declines in these insects globally. So, the next time you see a miller moth in Colorado, or any moth at a light anywhere on Earth, remember that it's working the night shift. Turn out that light so it can go about its way. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Ryan St Laurent, University of Colorado Boulder Read more: How many types of insects are there in the world? Why are moths attracted to light? Humans are killing helpful insects in hundreds of ways − simple steps can reduce the harm Ryan St Laurent receives funding from the National Science Foundation (no active grants). Some scientific publications referenced in this article were coauthored by Ryan or by his other collaborators.
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Midsummer butterflies spotted early in Britain after sunny spring
Midsummer butterflies are on the wing in early May after a sunny spring sparked one of the most advanced seasons for Britain's Lepidoptera on record. The Lulworth skipper – usually found in June and July – is flying at Lulworth Cove in Dorset, the chequered skipper emerged in April rather than mid-May in Scotland and the first swallowtail, which is commonest in mid-June, was spotted in Norfolk on 1 May. 'The chequered skipper is a butterfly you can set your calendar by – it typically comes out 13-15 May,' said Tom Prescott, the head of Butterfly Conservation Scotland. 'I was absolutely staggered when it was seen on 26 April.' Lepidopterists said the early emergences this year were caused by the prolonged sunny, dry spring but were also a clear sign of insects responding to global heating. While some species appear to be adapting their emergence to climatic changes, there are fears some early emerging insects may fall out of sync with pathogens, predators or the availability of food for their caterpillars. 'It's fine for the chequered skipper but I worry for some butterfly and moth species that are overwintering as an egg and trying to emerge as a caterpillar in sync with the leaf flush,' said Prescott. The caterpillar of the rare dark bordered beauty moth feeds on sucking aspen but if the fine spring causes it to emerge too early there won't be any leaves for it to eat. Many butterflies are emerging at least two or even three weeks earlier than normal this spring. The average first sighting of the swallowtail over the past 10 years has been 14 May but this year it was spotted at Norfolk Wildlife Trust's Hickling Broad nature reserve on 1 May. Both the swallowtail and the Lulworth skipper sightings on 2 May were the second-earliest recorded emergence over the past two decades, with only 2011 being a similarly early spring. In the 1980s, the Lulworth skipper emerged in early July. The marsh fritillary was first seen on 20 April this year – in Wiltshire – three weeks before its first sighting in 2024. The wood white also popped up three weeks earlier than last year, first spotted flying through Devon and Dorset woodlands on 9 April. Although the early butterflies are a sign of the pace of climate breakdown, Richard Fox, the head of science at Butterfly Conservation, said picking the optimum time to emerge was one challenge that most Lepidoptera could probably meet. 'Whilst there is potential concern about decoupling – coming out of sync with host plants or pathogens or predators – all of the things in these biological food webs are responding to the weather and climate change in the longer term, and doing so at different rates, with different flexibility,' said Fox. 'There's a lot of inter-individual variation in butterfly and moth populations, so not all swallowtails are going to come out on 1 May. If the weather has tricked some into coming out too early it should not be a disaster. There should also be plenty of scope for evolutionary adaptation.' Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Alongside early sightings, there are strong indications of butterflies rapidly moving north because of climate change. The gatekeeper crossed the border into Scotland for the first time last summer while relatively recent arrivals in Scotland, including the white-letter hairstreak, comma and holly blue, continued their rapid march north. The holly blue has moved from Edinburgh to Aberdeen in recent seasons while the comma has colonised the Highlands. Last year was the second worst for common butterflies since scientific monitoring began 50 years ago and butterfly experts are hoping that the sunny spring enables populations to recover some of their numbers. 'It's been a wonderful spring for butterflies in Scotland,' said Prescott. 'The butterflies are on the wing much longer and many species are moving north rapidly.'
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
'Bone Collector' Caterpillar Wears Dead Bugs to Steal Prey From Spiders
We all need a way to get along in this wild, wicked world, and a rare insect found only on a mountainside on O'ahu has found an incredible strategy. A species of caterpillar that scientists are calling the 'bone collector' is not only a carnivore, and a cannibal, it also dresses itself in the body parts of dead insects so it can sneak around undetected and steal prey right from the jaws of spiders. No other species of caterpillar has been observed behaving this way, and only 62 individuals of the species have been seen in 20 years of fieldwork. The findings suggest that the newly described bone collector is rare, vulnerable, and requires targeted conservation to protect its place in our world. The insect belongs to the Hyposmocoma genus, and has been described for the first time in a new paper. Caterpillars are the larval stage for insects of the Lepidoptera order – you know, butterflies and moths. As adults, most of these insects primarily feed on plant matter (mostly), and their larvae do the same. It's common to see caterpillars merrily munching away on a leaf. Carnivorous species are rare. Just 0.1 percent of the known butterfly and moth species have caterpillars that like to munch on other animals. Caterpillars aren't exactly the most nimble of creatures, so the food of carnivorous species often includes slow-moving or stationary prey such as scale insects that cling to trees, wasp and ant larvae, and the eggs of other insects. The bone collector's strategy involves cozying up to a spider. A research team led by entomologist Daniel Rubinoff of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa observed the species in the wild, and collected several specimens to observe their behavior in a laboratory setting. The way they live their lives is very strange for a caterpillar. In the wild, a bone collector caterpillar will find an enclosed spider web – one that's safely concealed under tree bark, for example – and collect inedible pieces of insect to make themselves a little coat, bound together with silk. Once there, they'll happily chow down on any insects caught in the web, even chewing through the silk wrappers of snacks that the spider has stashed for later. The researchers found them living this way with multiple species of spiders, none of which were native to Hawaii, suggesting that the caterpillar is somewhat adaptable. In the lab, the researchers gave the caterpillars a variety of detritus to choose from to build their little nests. The caterpillars noticeably only chose the body parts of other insects, or shed spider skin, eschewing bits of twig or leaf or bark. And when no insect parts were offered, the caterpillars did not accept anything else: it's bug bits or nothing. "Given the context," the researchers write, "it is possible that the array of partially consumed body parts and shed spider skins covering the case forms effective camouflage from a spider landlord; the caterpillars have never been found predated by spiders or wrapped in spider silk." In captivity, the caterpillars would eat any live, slow-moving, or immobilized insect prey. Anything was fair game – even each other. When placed together, one tore open the other's case, entered, and feasted on the inhabitant. This probably helps reduce food competition, limiting each web to just one caterpillar interloper. But it also means that the species doesn't have strength in numbers. Its genome suggests that it first emerged between around 15 million to 9 million years ago, older than the oldest island of Hawaii by millions of years, indicating that it was once more widespread. Today, its range is just 15 square kilometers (5.8 square miles), isolated to a forest in a single mountain range, on a single island. Work needs to be done to understand this strange little caterpillar and how it developed its survival strategy… but also to protect it from increasing environmental stressors, including a growing number of invasive species in its tiny, isolated habitat range. "Without conservation attention," the researchers write, "it is likely that the last living representative of this lineage of carnivorous, body part-collecting caterpillars that has adapted to a precarious existence among spider webs will disappear." The research has been published in Science. 113 Million-Year-Old 'Hell Ant' Discovery Is Oldest Ever Found Most Bees Nest in The Ground. Offering Rocks And Gravel Is a Simple Way to Help Them Thrive. This Secret Mathematical Rule Has Shaped Beaks For 200 Million Years
