Pronuba in Western Canada

[Dave Clermont]

N. pronuba....
it has been a couple of years since it has appeared around here and it is
now one of the most common moth in my area
Here are some (translated from french) quotes from Louis Handfield's "guide
des papillons du Québec" (Broquet, 1999)

-->"collected for the first time in Quebec by Daniel Neron June 22nd 1987 at
Mont royal, in Montreal. In canada, the specie has been collected for the
first time in Halifax, Nova Scotia , in 1979: In Newfoundland, it was in
St-John, in 1984 : In Maine, it was in 1985: In New Brunswick, it was in
1986 : The specie is now present in the state of Vermont since 1989 and has
been reported in Ontario since 1992. In North East of USA, The specie is
present in states of New Hampshire since 1990, in New York since 1992, In
Massachusetts since 1989 , in Connecticut since 1993 and in Maryland since
1992. It has now spreaded up to Winsconsin and Washington (DC) . We have
calculated that, since 1979 to 1986, it has been spreading at a ratio of 55
km /year, what is considered verry fast. Since the specie is now in
Wisconsin and Washington (DC) , we can calculate the spreading ratio up to
128.5 km/ year. The adults have a verry long lifespan (from 40 to 120 days)
and females can lay from 1000 to 2000 eggs , two major factors that
contribute to it's verry rapid progression. "<--


Dave




> Hello all,
>
> I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but where I live
sometimes
> my sheet will be covered in N. pronuba. That happened last year, but I"ve
> been lucky so far this year. Some nights I swear there could have been 500
or
> so of them all over the sheet, as well as flying in swarms around barn
lights
> around the area. They also covered up my Buddlei bush (the flower parts
> anyhow), making it hard to find Catocala hiding about. The hundreds that
> decided to cover my sheet every night wasn't the entire problem: the bunch
of
> them flying about smacking into my  head was annoying too. Perhaps they
were
> sent here to form some sort of militia to protect the other moths? Or did
> they just take advantage of their welcome? I was just wondering if anyone
> else has had a problem collecting because of these little critters.
>
>
> Randy Lyttle
> Hannibal, NY
>