Day flying moths

[Eric or Pat Metzler]

Well, when you include Sesiidae, Glyphipterigidae, Adelidae, and many of the other
'micro' families that we don't ordinarily think of nor easily see, there are a LOT of
day flying moths.

Kathleen Moon wrote:

> jhimmel at CONNIX.COM wrote:
> >
> > 'O Learned Throng -
> >
> > I was asked a very interesting question - that I couldn't answer.  Are there
> > more day-flying moths on the wing in North America than there are butterflies on
> > a typical day?
> >
> > Any thoughts?
>
> Well now, that is a sticky one:  Counting species, probably not, but if
> you are counting individuals, the white-lined sphinx and others that can
> be very common could throw the proportions of your count the other way
> by several orders of magnitude.  One spring day, I was in Box Canyon
> (~160 miles east of Los Angeles in the Coachella Valley area [Colorado
> Desert]) and saw some 30 white-lined sphinxes (Hyles lineata) nectaring
> at Chilopsis linearis (mimbre) between 1045h and 1115h.  So I am told,
> this is not all that unusual for this species.
>
> Pierre A Plauzoles
> sphinxangelorum at bigfoot.com

--
Eric H. Metzler
1241 Kildale Sq. N.
Columbus Ohio 43229-1306 USA
spruance at infinet.com
614 888 3642