Noctua pronuba in USA

[Chris Raper]

On 15 Jan 1999 04:58:24 -0800, viceroy at GATE.NET (Anne Kilmer) wrote:

>When a critter is funny-looking and bright-colored, it is usually also
>toxic. Or pretending to be. (Mullerian and Batesian mimicry are involved
>here, if you want to be technical.)
>If this moth is not in fact toxic, the local birds etc. will presently
>figure this out and the population will level off. 

Hi Anne,

AFAIK, Noctua are NOT toxic and their larvae have NO urticating spines
- making them ideal bird-food. The only protection the adult moths
have is a flash/startle colouration on their hindwings - their fw is a
variable brown pattern (from straw to dark brown) and their hw is
bright orange in colour. In the UK their common name is 'Large Yellow
Underwing' - presumably the word 'orange' was not comon at the time or
the person was colour-blind! N.comes is the 'Lesser Yellow Underwing'.

I doubt that they will pose much of a problem to local wildlife but
this is very difficult to predict. The only other factor might be
genetic - ie. they _could_ hybridise with a native species if there is
a closely related species in the area - but I'm no expert on
Canadian/US moths! :-)

Best wishes,
Chris R.