Return of the Giant Leopard Moths

The Giant Leopard Moth's (Hypercompe scribonia) are back after an extremely warm start to March 2022. There is a single brood in the North and two or more broods in the South. Nearly full-grown larvae overwinter and complete their development in the spring. In northern latitudes, larvae accumulate glycerol to enhance their diapause freeze tolerance.  So those appearing around Central Florida are overwintering larvae that awoke early in Florida's non-existent "spring."

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This female somehow got into the house.  I put her on a reminder card and carried her back outside.  I was able to identify her sex by the missing wing scales.  She had likely recently mated, losing some wing scales in the process.

Others are on fence posts and wallboards laying eggs. The giant leopard moth is our largest eastern tiger moth. It was formerly in the family Arctiidae which now composes the subfamily Arctiinae in the family Erebidae. Giant leopard moths are nocturnal.  Males are commonly attracted to lights at night. Sometimes dozens of males come to bright lights set out in good habitat . Females are less common around lights.  These specimen have been found around a gazebo by one of my ponds that has a bright LED street light.

This specimen I found on the fence, below, appeared kind of disoriented by a cool breeze.  She had just laid hundreds of eggs.  Click on the photo to enlarge. 

The sex act in this species takes up to 24 hours during which time the male and female are constantly attached. During mating sessions, the wings of the male cover most of the female's abdomen, and this can sometimes lead tup to loss of wing scales. An extreme example is pictured below.

We've Read:

Police Net a Butterfly Killer,
and now He May Face Jail Time
The killer, a former body builder, stalked his frail victims at nature reserves, in one case clambering over a locked gate armed with a net before he chased them down, trapped them and carried them away, dead or alive.

The Butterfly, the Ant, and the Oregano Plant
It may be hard to imagine a ménage à trois, satisfactory to all parties, in which one member tries to dislodge another with a toxic gas and a third eats the offspring of the other two.  But such an arrangement exists, and one of its members may even be sitting quietly in your kitchen's spice rack.

Monarch Migration Plunges to Lowest Level in Decades
The number of monarch butterflies that completed an annual migration to their winter home in a Mexican forest sunk this year to its lowest level in at least two decades, due mostly to extreme weather and changed farming practices in North America, according to the Mexican government and a conservation alliance report.

An Exaltation of Moths
Much-Maligned Kin of the Butterfly
Moth events are all the rage.  They are a way to dispel some of the myths about moths—that they are all brown and drab, that they eat tomato plants and nibble on sweaters.  Only a very few species are what might be considered to some to be pests.
We've Watched:

Just Add Zebras
John Oliver Uses Dancing Zebra Footage to Make "Painful" News More Bearable
"I think it's pretty clear, with things in America the way they are now, we need these zebras like never before," said Oliver.  He provided 24 minutes of a zebra in front of a green screen dancing, reading the newspaper and being generally silly, encouraging viewers to add the footage to "painful moments" with the hashtag #JustAddZebras

. . . And The Internet Responded

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