Into the spirit of NATIONAL MOTH WEEK

Welcome back to National Moth Week on iNaturalist! We're hoping that you can help us catalog many moths and other Lepidoptera. Moths are an amazing and diverse group of animals that you may have seen. Your observations help with moth and other research throughout the world! They can influence important decisions.
Here's a personal story for National Moth Week. I'm surrounded by caterpillars. Next door I have generations of monarchs (provide host milkweed plants, native not tropical!) But those are butterflies! I have seen geometer moth caterpillars (aka inchworms). But one day, on my native salvia plant I noticed two or three caterpillars and some evidence of others–something I believe is caterpillar poop. These were pale yellow with black dots. I had no idea what they were! So I added an observation to iNaturalist. No idea what it was, so I just added it as Lepidoptera. Perhaps a month went by and there were no other ideas for what this was. Today I decided to take matters into my own hands. I searched online for "yellow caterpillar with black dots". Unfortunately I only found wooly caterpillars and similar results. After a few guides yielded no results, I searched "caterpillar on salvia plant". I clicked on the first article. And I found that it talked about the Southern Pink Moth (aka the inornate pyrausta moth). Looking back, I remembered seeing this on my salvia the day before. COULD IT BE? And the caterpillar photo matched mine. I had found my observation! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/86490935
Make your own moth observations and share your story!
Learn all about National Moth Week: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2021-toronto-and-gta/journal/54413-national-moth-week-july-17-25-2021
And be a part of the competition: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/moths-of-sri-lanka/journal/54414-update-on-moth-week-competition-2021-07-19

Posted on Ιούλιος 19, 2021 0417 ΜΜ by iamsharkgirl iamsharkgirl

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iamsharkgirl

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Ιούλιος 7, 2021 08:15 ΠΜ PDT

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