My first Luna Moth

[58chevy]

Rev. Farrier,

Congrats on your first luna moth. You will find a polyphemus soon. One of the best ways to find moths (and beetles) is to visit brightly lit gas stations near wooded areas at night. The ones that leave the lights on all night are the best. I visit about a dozen stations on a regular basis. I usually bring home more bugs from a gas station run than I do from blacklighting. It's like having sheets hung in several different locations. You can drive around your area and find suitable stations (or other lighted buildings). There's a good chance you'll get a polyphemus the first night. Make sure the lights are mercury vapor (white), not sodium (orange). Sodium lights don't attract anything.

[bigwhitmer]

Mar 26, 2012 20:58:59 GMT -8 evra said:

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about. One side of my sheet at Harshaw last summer:

That is what my sheet looks like in my dreams. Wow. I'm competing with too many other lights to ever attract that many moths.

[anthony]

That is the best looking sheet ever.

[evra]

Thanks. I meant that it was unusually good for Citheronias that night, and overall it was a bit better than average. It's still not that unusual to see a sheet like that, but the timing is everything. You only get about one week per year where it's like that. One week earlier or a week later and there is significantly less.

In Madera Canyon the sheet doesn't usually get covered with large moths like that, but occasionally you can get A. oculea or H. c. gloveri in good numbers. On the other hand though, you'll get many more beetles, especially Chrysinas there.

Dynastes granti usually flies a bit later than the large moths, and in much better numbers in the central part of the state. Especially Gila and Yavapai Cos. M. punctulatus is a bit more difficult. They don't tend to come to lights very strongly, so you have to go wandering around looking for them with a flashlight. The last time I went looking for them, I got caught in a downpour and it was a big muddy mess. But they actually aren't all that rare. The first time I went out looking for them I found my first one (a female) within 60 seconds. It's just hard to get excited over such a boring little beetle though.

[joee30]

That is how I found mine. I walked around and found them on mesquite trees. I've never had much luck with H. Gloveri anywhere I've been. I have collected A. oculea and a couple of E. oslari there.

[evra]

I think Gloveri is one of the harder to find widely distributed SE AZ Saturniids. Species like Automeris patagoniensis and Rothschildia cincta can be tough too, but they are only found in certain spots. In most years, Gloveri seems to start flying in good numbers just a little later than most of the other species. But the Patagonia and Huachuca Mtns. are the two places I've collected them the most consistently. In that picture I posted, which was taken 7-26-11 I think I had 4 males that night. I went back on 8-04-11 to the same spot and I had 6-7 females and 15-20 males.

E. oslari on the other hand, is found just about everywhere, but is especially common in some of the lower elevation desert areas.



This picture was taken in 2009, but every time I go to this spot in late July, the E. oslari are like this.

[exoticimports]

In upstate NY, which is obviously not GA, the luna fly first, then the cecropia, then polyphemus- about a week or two apart at the hight of each.

I find that if I throw a low-wattage UV (not MV) light out with a sheet and leave it out all night, the lunas will come in some time after midnight. Heck, they come in if I accidentally leave on the 65W porch light!

[littlebrownlight1]

This week I have discovered several piles of Luna moth wings in my yard. Just the wings. No body! Over a three day period, I counted eight sets of wings. Can someone explain this to me? The wings were in pristine condition and piled together. Thought birds or cats might have eaten the bodies but because the wings were not damaged at all, I felt like something else was going on. Help?!?!

[mountainpathfinder]

Screech owls or another of the small owls, if I were to guess. It's making captures and then flying to a safe perch at which it processes (dismembers) and eats the moths. I'm also a birder and builder of screech owl nesting boxes.

[littlebrownlight1]

Thanks for that reply. However, the wings were in neat piles on the ground and did not seem to have been traumatized at all. Only the body of the moth was missing from each pile. Neat piles with all four wings of the Luna moths in each pile in different locations all over the yard.

[joee30]

I've caught my first Citheronia regalis moths at the lights of my work place. the building I work in has a row of 4 mercury vapor lights, and usually has some goodies on it every night or morning. I have also collected a couple of polyphemus moths and a female promethea.

[diaval]

Apr 7, 2012 20:00:25 GMT -8 exoticimports said:

In upstate NY, which is obviously not GA, the luna fly first, then the cecropia, then polyphemus- about a week or two apart at the hight of each.

I find that if I throw a low-wattage UV (not MV) light out with a sheet and leave it out all night, the lunas will come in some time after midnight. Heck, they come in if I accidentally leave on the 65W porch light!

I know this post is a few years old, but I do have a question about when is a good time of year the Lunas come out in New York.   I am from Long Island and I was told that Lunas are in my area, however, living here all my life, I have yet to see one.   But I would like to see a schedule on that lineup as I am interested in all three of those moths.   But I am mostly interested in the Luna.

What I had in mind of doing is to find the optimum time they come out and hopefully try to attract a male with female which I would obtain by purchasing a cocoon.   Thus instead of a light, I want to draw a male in via female pheromones.

The thing is that I am in a typical suburban area and there are MANY lights around.   There is a park nearby though and that park goes up to a pair of lakes...one of the lakes is in a state park and the other one is unsupervised.   Both lakes are surrounded by many trees.   So I am hoping there is some moth action in there.  But that remains to be seen.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[mothman27]

Mar 24, 2012 17:29:50 GMT -8 evra said:

One mistake that I notice a lot of new moth collectors make is that they get frustrated if the collecting is slow and pack up and leave around midnight. In Arizona at least, the best collecting is from about 1 AM to 3 AM for most Saturniids, although there are some exceptions. So they tend to get a mistaken impression that some species are rare, when in fact, they would have gotten them had they stayed out all night.

I've seen and collected a lot of Antheraea polyphemus and A. oculea, and for what it's worth, the ones I've collected have almost always come in to lights between 10 PM and 1 AM. But I've only ever collected them in July and August, in the spring since it's dark so much earlier, the flight time might be different.

My only other piece of advice is to set up your lights around lots of oak trees which is the polyphemus host plant. Other than that, just be patient and persistent, and you'll get a polyphemus one night.

I stayed up just about the entire night in Steuben Co., IN, 3 days ago on 80 acres of prairie, wetland, forest and so on. I didn't even see one saturniid. I ran a sheet with a 160w MV, BL tube and BLB tube. I got three sphingids(D. myron, D. choerilus and P. myops (all common species)). I had but 3 catocala. It was hot and slightly humid. The forests have many pines, oaks, hickories, hackberies, tulips, sycamore, maples, walnuts, etc. The prairies have many, many types of native grasses. Why do you think I didn't get anything good?

I went tapping in the old growth oak/hickory/walnut forest the next afternoon but only saw 1 catocala in 2 hours.
Please let me know if you see an obvious flaw in my setup.

Thanks,
Tim

[mothman27]

Aug 7, 2016 8:53:25 GMT -8 diaval said:

Apr 7, 2012 20:00:25 GMT -8 exoticimports said:

In upstate NY, which is obviously not GA, the luna fly first, then the cecropia, then polyphemus- about a week or two apart at the hight of each.

I find that if I throw a low-wattage UV (not MV) light out with a sheet and leave it out all night, the lunas will come in some time after midnight. Heck, they come in if I accidentally leave on the 65W porch light!

I know this post is a few years old, but I do have a question about when is a good time of year the Lunas come out in New York.   I am from Long Island and I was told that Lunas are in my area, however, living here all my life, I have yet to see one.   But I would like to see a schedule on that lineup as I am interested in all three of those moths.   But I am mostly interested in the Luna.

What I had in mind of doing is to find the optimum time they come out and hopefully try to attract a male with female which I would obtain by purchasing a cocoon.   Thus instead of a light, I want to draw a male in via female pheromones.

The thing is that I am in a typical suburban area and there are MANY lights around.   There is a park nearby though and that park goes up to a pair of lakes...one of the lakes is in a state park and the other one is unsupervised.   Both lakes are surrounded by many trees.   So I am hoping there is some moth action in there.  But that remains to be seen.

Any advice would be appreciated.

May through July according to BAMONA has the most sightings.

[exoticimports]

First, luna will be found near walnut. You need to be near walnut.

This year in the northern Finger Lakes area the first two weeks of June were terribly cold and wet; lunas were abundant for the two weeks following that, at the same time as polyphemus and io. Long Island runs a good 10F warmer, so I suspect luna typically eclose in early May.

Chuck