5/1/2023 0 Comments Rosy maple mothIn recent years, a group of researchers discovered that wax-moth caterpillars can digest plastic, inspiring scientists to further scrutinize them in hopes to solve one of humanity’s biggest waste problems. They’re even valuable to humans too: The silkworm is the larva of Bombyx mori, the domestic silk moth. Moths or their caterpillars are also vital food sources for birds and bats. They pollinate night-blooming flowers when bees and butterflies have closed shop for the day. Even the brown ones that frequent the porchlight in our urban homes are beautiful in their own way, he says-viewers who take a closer look will notice the assortment of patterns among these moths.Īppearances aside, moths are ecologically important members of the ecosystem. They’re generally perceived as hairy or drab little things, but he says that they’re no less spectacular than their day-flying cousins. Moths are highly misunderstood compared to the butterfly, says Akito Kawahara, a curator of Lepidoptera at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “I don’t think moths are appreciated in the way that they should be.”Ī male Dobsonfly similar to the one that landed on Rhodes’s face “It blows my mind just knowing that that many creatures come out of nowhere they're all there just waiting to be seen,” says Rhodes. To photograph this species, Rhodes endured a behemoth, jaw chomping Dobsonfly landing on her face while she captured the perfect shot. Her latest craze is the rosy maple moth that’s all decked out in cotton candy pink and feathery feelers. The wavy-lined emerald moth is another favorite-she adores their white squiggles streaking across soft green wings. She’s fallen in love with the giant leopard moth she observed at the start of the summer, its white wings adorned with eye-popping black splotches. She regularly spies moths so gorgeous they would “put butterflies to shame.” It’s hard to pinpoint a favorite, she says. Rhodes says that each night she’s stunned by the sheer diversity of the moths that drop in. Even fresh after a rain, Rhodes finds new visitors in her yard transformed-once, she caught a lesser maple spanworm moth in the act of sipping on raindrops.Ī lesser maple spanworm moth sips on fallen raindrops in the Catskill Mountains. “When it’s warm, it’s going to look like Grand Central Station on a busy day in New York City, just insanity,” she says. On hot summer nights, so many moths land on her sheet that she stays up until 4 a.m. When the night is colder, moth traffic isn’t so hectic, so she might head in early at 1 a.m. Rhodes says every mothing night is different. She adds, “mothing could be the new birding.” Mothing can be as simple as turning on the porchlight in your home and watching the moths it attracts. “It’s a perfect kind of pandemic activity,” Rhodes says. Instead, she found the ideal substitute activity: snapping pictures of moths, which are mostly nocturnal. On top of the lockdowns, she had a foot injury, so she couldn’t venture out on long daytime hikes and keep to her usual hobby of photographing birds. She picked up her passion for observing moths-known as “mothing”-last year at the height of the pandemic. Rhodes has been photographing these critters on most nights since May in advance of National Moth Week, which falls this week from July 17 to 25. Amongst them is this large waved sphinx moth that was photographed in Rhodes’s home in the Catskill Mountains. Soon, hundreds of moths will flock to the floodlit fabric like actors taking center stage, jostling for the limelight. Then she puts several blacklights above the sheet and waits. She wanders out onto her yard in Woodstock, New York, and hangs a white bedsheet across two poles or her porch. When the night falls and most people start to turn in, wildlife conservation photographer Carla Rhodes grabs her camera and heads outside.
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