Moth ID

[Bonaventure]

Hi Ian & members,

Nice to see this forum on SRGC! I think I wrote once on the bulb log, but have been busy & lurking of late. One thing "bugging" me - some year(s) back, a photo at the end of a weekly log of a wierd cross-shaped moth/fly. In a strange case of synchronicity, after seeing it posted, one waited for me by my porch light that evening when I came home. Never seen before or since.

I found an insect ID site, but the array is boggling and i don't know where to start. Can you key me in to that weekly post (not in the index, as are not frogs, birds pets, pookahs, tulpas, and other wee creatures you, and most of us, have in our gardens but which you have photo'd so well. I can forward it to an entomologist friend who's on aroid-L.

Thanks,

Bonaventure Magrys
Cliffwood Beach, NJ USA

[Carlo]

Hey Bonaventure...this is a long way to go to meet up again!

I'll be interested to see what you're talking about, I might have an idea or two myself...

[Anthony Darby]

Your moth sounds like a 'plume moth' (Pterophoridae). Their wings are split into feather-like structures. They are rolled around each other and held at right angles to the body when the moth is at rest. Platyptilia gonodactyla is a common example in Scotland.

[Bonaventure]

Great, that's it! but it looked more like this one   http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=6107

Must'ave been telling me to go check my Brugmansias for damage by the larvae! Never seen one "in the flesh" before or since. It was creepy. Like some kind of prehistoric micromachine.

Arums are up here, have a few spots of cryptic colchicums (didn't know they were there before) and hellebores are putting out last new flushes of leaves as autumn starts here...

[Carlo]

funky critter B. My Brugmansia have holes in their leaves...but I haven't seen the perpetrator...

[Maggi Young]

Hello, Bonaventure, good to hear from you. We have been away partying involved in serious plant related conversations at the SRGC Discussion Weekend and there is much to catch up with on our return but when time permits I will seek out photo of the moth in question and the bug guys can proclaim on it!