I moved to Massachusetts from Texas in 2014, and I was amazed at the diversity of insects to be found in the woods and meadows here. My weekends have since been filled with long walks during which I have happily and somewhat obsessively photographed thousands of moths, butterflies, and caterpillars among other things.

A gallery of many of these photos can be found here: http://isobellefox.deviantart.com/gallery/

In 2015, I began raising and releasing both butterflies and moths, and it was during this time that I discovered the Caterpillar Lab (http://www.thecaterpillarlab.org/). During a visit to one of the Lab’s public outreach events, I overheard a conversation about “mothing,” and I had a bit of a eureka moment.
Why, after all of the years of photographing moths on various porches and on the walls of convenience stores and other obscure late night locations, had it never occurred to me to actively try to draw them to my own backyard?
It seemed so obvious!
I began my own mothing adventure in the early spring of 2016, with a modest set up: a single blacklight bulb and a bit of curtain cloth draped over a small greenhouse enclosure. I was immediately delighted with the results and spent many, many nights experimenting with different lights. As the nights grew warmer, I observed ever increasing diversity in the population of moths and other insects that would visit my light, and I became more and more interested. I eventually purchased a brighter, larger blacklight and moved my mothing station to the side of a storage shed. With a brighter light and a flatter, larger surface area, my success rate vastly increased. My mothing sessions usually lasted from sundown until around 12 or 1am.
During this time, I also began to make my first attempts at identifying the moths that I was photographing each evening. I gradually found several websites and a few facebook groups devoted to the moths of Massachusetts.
It was, in fact, through these groups that I became aware of National Moth Week and enthusiastically signed up to have my already nightly backyard mothing sessions included in the event for 2016.
For the mothing seaons of 2016, I have managed to tentatively identify 241 moths, though I still have many photographs that are in need of research – something I am enjoying during these long, grey Winter months.
During National Moth Week, I recorded 86 species. Among my favorites were Suzuki’s Promalactis Moth, a beautiful, brightly colored micromoth, and the Large Maple Spanworm, which was easily the biggest moth I saw all year.

I am definitely still an amateur in the often confusing field of moth identification. I do my best and attempt to verify my findings using various rescources in the form of books, websites, and social media groups, but even with the help of those who are vastly more knowledgable, I have no doubt that many of my identifications are erroneous. There are also plenty of moths which simply manage to defy even my best efforts. This is, however,
part of the draw of mothing for me: there is always something new to see and something new to learn!

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To see some of the moths Debbie photographed during the events at a local home on July 25, 2016 – click here.   Debbie shared with us a list of the moths that were identified in the various events.

These are a few unidentified moths – any help to ID is greatly appreciated

On 7-23-16 these moths were photographed at gardens near a busy expressway:

grateful midget moth     celery leaftier moth     chickweed geometer moth

the white-speck moth    Lucerne moth                snowy urola moth

the wedgling moth         Clemens grass tubeworm moth

On 7-25-16 we blacklighted for about an hour at home. Here is a list of identified moths:

catalpa sphinx moth       reticulated fruitworm moth      splendid palpita moth

double-banded grass-veneer moth                                     the wedgling moth

orange-headed epicallima moth                                          basswood leafroller moth

small bird-dropping moth                                                    dead-wood borer moth

white-lined snout moth                                                        drab prominent moth

On 7-27-16 we blacklighted at a large botanical garden:

clemens’ grass tubeworm moth    catalpa sphinx moth

drab prominent moth                     abbott’s sphinx moth

red-banded leafroller moth           common idia moth

grapeleaf skeletonizer moth          the Hebrew moth

American idia moth                        yellow-striped armyworm moth

the Lucerne moth                            waterlily leafcutter moth

grateful midget moth                     small mossy glyph moth

elegant grass-veneer moth           sober renia moth

large lace-border moth                 black-bordered lemon moth

snowy urola moth                          faint-spotted palthis

obtuse yellow moth                        a sparganothid moth

On 7-30-16 we blacklighted at Howell Wetlands:

Ailanthes webworm moth   Isabella tiger moth      Yellow-striped armyworm

Faint-spotted palthis            Delicate cycnia             Lost owlet mot

Black-banded owlet              Bluegrass webworm

Grateful midget                     Waved sphinx moth    Large mossy glyph

Maple looper                         Harnessed tiger moth

Clemens’ grass tubeworm moth                                 Elegant grass-veneer

Yellow-collared armyworm                                        

Either sycamore tussock or banded tussock

Green cloverworm                                                         Celery leaftier

Oblique-banded leafroller                                           Waterlily leafcutter moth

Grateful midget                    Black-bordered lemon

Dimorphic macalla              Large paectus                 Sharp stigma looper

Cherry casebearer

Crystal Ernst (best known online by her internet alter-ego “TGIQ”) is a PhD candidate studying Arctic beetle assemblages and functional ecology at McGill University in Quebec, Canada. She is also very passionate about science education and outreach. She has been communicating about insects and natural history though her blog, www.thebuggeek.com, since 2009. You can also find her on Twitter (@GeekInQuestion), Facebook, and Google+.

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Although she has had an innate interest in natural history since childhood, her formal interest in entomology was sparked by an Introduction to Insects course taken as an undergraduate student. She has been learning about, observing, and collecting insects ever since. She has a preference (inordinate fondness?) for beetles, but is known to get excited about just about anything with six (and more rarely, eight) legs.

She identifies as an entomologist, a community/population ecologist and a natural historian (but not necessarily in that order). She generally blogs about the fauna and flora of her home turf in eastern Ontario, but also writes about her own research, life in academia, and the insects she encounters in more northerly latitudes during the field season.

Although Crystal does still occasionally collect insect specimens, she has been increasingly drawn to “capturing” insects though macrophotography. She is looking forward to seeing her moth photograph collection grow during National Moth Week!

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