Questions about Noctua pronuba

[Chris Raper]

On Thu, 14 Jan 1999 15:09:52 GMT, "Jonathan Sylvestre"
<Jonathan.Sylvestre at residences.ulaval.ca> wrote:

>in my region, this moth abundance increase rapidly from year to years... For
>example, I saw this moth first in 1993.... but last summer, it was
>everywhere.... IM little anxious of this "problem"

Hi Jonathan

I was intrigued to hear of the rapid spread of N.pronuba (& presumably
comes). Over here in the UK it is very common in mid-late summer but
it would never be called a 'plague' species. N.comes is always less
common that pronuba, though they can get very common for a week or two
in summer - in my experience.

I think it's success, and the fact that it doesn't cause any real
problems here, is due to the wide range of larval foodplants it will
accept and the fact that the larvae do not seem to be gregarious. I
don't think the larvae have any chemical defences and they don't have
the urticating hairs found so often in 'plague' species.

I was quite surprised to read (in another thread) that they are listed
as a 'pest' of vegetable crops - I wonder how significant a pest they
are - perhaps anything that eats a crop (no matter how much) is
classified as a pest?

Or course, it's anyone's guess what the effect will be on Canadian
wildlife! The species may just co-exist happily with others or it may
over compete - but that isn't the case here.

The only problem I have with Noctua in general is to do with the fact
that they tend to 'bully' the other moths in my moth trap! This is
because they are _very_ stong fliers and they tend to 'wake-up' first.
:-)

Hope this helps
Chris R.