Mystery on the board from Wisconsin

[coloradeo]

Hello, I traveled back to the lake home in far Northeastern Wisconsin (Vilas County) I collected at when I was a youth. I used to blacklight when I was a kid and got a lot of great sphinx, polyphemus, luna, etc. For the first time, last weekend I brought my Mercury Vapor setup and ran that in one spot and a blacklight in another. WOW! If only I'd been running the Mercury Vapor all those years ago. I caught a decent variety of sphinx, about 8 varieties, luna, poly and a single catocala (I think - maybe I'll post that one too - it's new to me). But the most interesting thing I caught was the attached moth (?) at the MV. I have been all through the Holland book and can't figure even what family to place it in, so I'm wondering what I've got here. The shape of the hindwing is making me wonder if it is a moth at all. Perhaps it's something real common, just new to me. It's about 7.5 cm wingspan. What do you think?

Eric

Attachments:

[evra]

Sthenopis argenteomaculatus in the family Hepialidae. Notice how the forewings and the hindwings are very similarly shaped. That's a telltale sign of a Hepialid. None of the species are all that common at lights. Nice catch.

[coloradeo]

Thanks Evra! I see it now -- in the part of the book less traveled by me. I did some searches on the site here and found some other good posts about the Hepialid family. Very fun catch -- I was delighted to find it as I knew I had something unusual by my standards.

[exoticimports]

I caught one in Upstate NY about 22 years ago. Only one I've ever seen.

[exoticinsects]

Hi Eric,

Congratulations, a very nice catch!

Sent you a PM.
Best regards, Benny

[trehopr1]

Wow, nice fresh hatch (super- clean) example of a rarely encountered moth species and family. A prize by most lepidopterists standards! Rarely seen in collections. Well done....

[Deleted]

Dont know if they are in my area but, I sure would like to collect one!