Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Micromoths from Last Week

Yesterday I covered the distinctive moths that came to my porchlight last week. Besides those moths, there were several rather plain or cryptic moths. The first is the moth above, which is the most boldly marked of the group. I have this one narrowed to two similar species: Scoparia basalis and Eudonia heterosalis. It seems more like the former, but I am not sure how to distinguish the two. As a side note, I am also not sure what happened to this moth's antennae.

When I posted this moth on BugGuide, two people responded with suggestions that it might be an Acorn Moth (Blastobasis glandulella) or another species in the same genus. While this is not quite an exact match for Acorn Moth, the pattern looks very similar and we do have plenty of its larval food source. One other moth from the same night looks very similar and might be the same species.

I am still not sure what this moth is. My best guess is that it belongs among Gelechoidea, but its pattern is very cryptic. It looks very similar to a moth I food indoors in January.

This moth is also still unidentified. It looks very similar to a moth I found indoors a few weeks ago. These little moths can be very tough, so I usually wait until after identifying the larger ones to work on them.

Update: I think that the last moth is a Household Casebearer (Phereoeca uterella).