2014 April 24

   Daniel Dönnecke found a spectacular moth at the Interurban campus of Camosun College on April 23.  He was caught off-guard without a camera, but his colleague

Todd Rayson quickly stepped in and got a couple of fine photographs.  It is a male Ceanothus Silk Moth.  You can tell that it is a male because of its fine bipectinate antennae.  There’s a new word!  From the Latin pecten – pectinis,  a comb.

  These antennae are so sensitive that they can detect molecules of female pheromone from a distance of  ?  Well… some authors say more than a mile.  I don’t know if this is true, but, in case you are inclined to doubt it, remember what you were taught at school – that every breath you take contains at least one molecule from the dying breath of Julius  Caesar. (I don’t know if that’s true, either.)

Bipectinate antennae (Hyalophora euryalus) Todd Rayson

   Scott Gilmore photographed a beautiful geometrid moth in Upper Lantzville on April 23.  Its genus is Cladara.  There are supposed to be two species in British Columbia, C. limitaria and C. atroliturata, but as far as we can make out the only difference between the two is that limitaria occurs on Vancouver Island and atroliturata doesn’t!  With that caution in mind, we’ll label this one as Cladara limitaria.