Moth bites man!

Bruce Walsh jbwalsh at u.arizona.edu
Mon Sep 11 12:48:22 EDT 2000


One of the "dangers" of mercury-vapor collecting of moths down here in SE
Arizona is the density of moths flying around the lights. We normally
stuff tissue paper or cotton in our ears to avoid things flying in. 

I was standing about 15 feet away from my light (usually well outside the
"danger zone") in Harsdaw Creek (Patagonia Mts, Santa Cruz Co, AZ) in
early July and had a moth fly in. The buzzing was so bad that I had troubles
with my balance. It would not fly out (using the standard light-to-the ear
method), and finally I had to kill it by placing ethyl acetate in a
cotton ball and then shoving it in my ear. I thought it had fallen out (as I
swim several times a week), but when I went to the doctor yesterday for an
ear ache, a (dead) moth was extracted from my right ear! I've place a
picture of it at

"http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/zeeb/butterflies/bites.html"

Any guesses at an ID will be welcome!

Bruce Walsh
Associate Professor
(Associate Editor, Genetics)
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Biosciences West
University of Arizona
Tucson,  AZ  85721  USA

email:   jbwalsh at u.arizona.edu
Office:  520 621-1915
Fax (Departmental)  520 621 9190

home page:  
"http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu"

Quantitative Genetics page:  
"http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/zbook/book.html"

Arizona Moths page: 
"http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/zeeb/butterflies/mothlist.html"

Arizona butterflies page: 
"http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/zeeb/butterflies/seazlist.html"



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