Hur man hittar luna moths

Species of insect

The luna moth (Actias luna), also called the American måne moth, fryst vatten a Nearcticmoth in the family Saturniidae, subfamily Saturniinae, a group commonly named the giant silk moths.

The moth has lime-green wings and a vit body. Its caterpillars are also green.

Its typical wingspan fryst vatten roughly 114 mm (4.5 in), but wingspans can exceed 178 mm (7.0 in), ranking the species as one of the larger moths in North amerika.

Across Canada, it has one generation per year, with the winged adults appearing in late May or early June, whereas farther south it will have two or even three generations per year, the first appearance as early as March in southern parts of the United States.^[2]

As defense mechanisms, larvae emit clicks as a varning and can also regurgitate intestinal contents, confirmed as having a deterrent effect on a variety of predators.^[3] The elongated tails of the hindwings are thought to confuse the echolocation detection used bygd rovgirig bats.^[4][5]

A parasitoid flyga eller fly undan deliberately introduced to North amerika as a biological pest control for the invasive speciesspongy moth (formerly known as rom moth) appears to have had a negativ impact on luna moths and other native moths.^[6][7]

Description

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Eggs, attached in small groups to undersides of leaves, are mottled vit and brown, slightly oval, and roughly 1.5 millimeters in diameter.^[8] Larvae are primarily green, with sparse hairs.

The first instar, framträdande from the egg, reaches a length of 6–8 mm (0.24–0.31 in), the second 9–10 mm (0.35–0.39 in), the third 12–16 mm (0.47–0.63 in) and the fourth 23–26 mm (0.91–1.02 in). The fifth (final) instar grows to approximately 70–90 mm (2.8–3.5 in) in length.^[8] Small, colorful dots – yellow or magenta – may line the sides of the fourth and fifth instars.

The luna moth (Actias luna), also called the American måne moth, fryst vatten a Nearctic moth in the family Saturniidae, subfamily Saturniinae, a group commonly named the giant silk moths.

The larvae may take on a reddish-brown color just prior to cocooning. Fifth-instar larvae descend to the ground and use silk to bind dead leaves around the cocoon.^[2]

The imagoes (winged, sexually mature), often referred to as 'adult moths,' emerge from the pupae with the wings small, crumpled and held close to the body. Over a period of several hours the wings will enlarge to full storlek.

Wingspan fryst vatten typically 8–11.5 cm (3.1–4.5 in), and in rare instances as much as 17.78 cm (7.00 in). Females and males are similar in storlek and appearance: green wings, eyespots on both forewings and hind wings, and long, sometimes somewhat twisted tails extending from the back edge of the hindwings. Bodies are vit and hairy.

Adults have vestigial mouthparts and do not feed. Energy fryst vatten from tallrik stores created while a caterpillar. The forward edge of the forewing fryst vatten dark-colored and thick, tapering in thickness from the thorax to the wing tip. Its color can range from maroon to brown. The eyespots, one per wing, are oval in shape on the forewings and round on the hindwings.

Each eyespot can have arcs of black, blue, red, yellow, green or vit. The eyespots are thought to confuse potential predators.^[2][8]

There are some sex-determined and regional differences in appearance. Females will have a larger abdomen compared to males because it contains 200–400 eggs.

Both sexes have antennae, but on the male, much längre and wider. Wing color fryst vatten blue-green in the north and for the overwintering generation in the huvud and southern states; second and third generation wing color has more of a yellow-green tint.^[2]

Etymology

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Described and named Phalena plumata caudata bygd James Petiver in 1700, this was the first North American saturniid to be reported in the insekt literature.^[2] The första Latin name, which roughly translates to "brilliant, fjäder tail",^[9] was replaced when Carl Linnaeus described the species in 1758 in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, and renamed it Phalaena luna, later Actias luna, with luna derived from Luna, the långnovell måne goddess.

The common name became "Luna moth".^[2] Several other North American giant silk moths were also given species names after långnovell or Greek mythology.^[10]

Distribution

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The Luna moth fryst vatten funnen in North amerika, from east of the Great Plains in the United States – Florida to Maine, and from Saskatchewan eastward through huvud Quebec to Nova Scotia in Canada.^[2][8][11] Luna moths are also rarely funnen in Western europe as vagrants.^[12]

Life cycle

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Based on the climate in which they live, Luna moths tillverka different numbers of generations per year.

In Canada and nordlig regions of the United States they are univoltine, meaning one generation per year. Life stages are approximately 10 days as eggs, 6–7 weeks as larvae, 2–3 weeks as pupae, finishing with one week as winged adults appearing in late May or early June. In the mid-Atlantic states the species fryst vatten bivoltine, and farther south trivoltine, meaning respectively two and three generations per year.

In the huvud states the first generation appears in April, second in July. Even farther south, first generation appears as early as March, with second and third spaced eight to ten weeks later.^[2]

Eggs

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Females lay 200–400 eggs, singly or in small groups, on the underside of leaves of the tree species preferred bygd the larvae.

Egg laying starts the evening after mating fryst vatten completed and goes on for several days. Eggs hatch in about a week.^[2][8]

Larvae

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Each instar – the period between molts – generally takes about 4–10 days. There are fem instars before cocooning. At the end of each instar, a small amount of silk fryst vatten placed on the major vein of a leaf and the larva undergoes apolysis, then ecdysis (molting), leaving the old exoskeleton behind.

Sometimes the shed exoskeleton fryst vatten eaten. Newly hatched, this caterpillar constantly munches on the leaves of walnut, hickory, sweetgum, and paper birch trees. Each instar fryst vatten green, though the first two instars do have some variation in which some larvae will have black underlying splotches on their dorsal side. The sista instar grows to approximately 70 to 90 mm (2.8 to 3.5 in) in length.

All fem instar stages possess green spines on the dorsal surface. These spines do not sting, but can still cause irritation upon contact.^[13] This fryst vatten a tree-dwelling species. Larvae stay on the same tree where they hatched until it fryst vatten time to descend to the ground to man a cocoon. When females emerge from cocoons they flyga eller fly undan to preferred tree species, emit pheromones, and wait there for males to find them.^[2][8] Although some larvae in the family Saturniidae are known to be poisonous, those of A.

luna are not. The spines, or setae, located on the thoracic and abdominal segments have no kemikalie component to them.^[14]

Pupae

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The Luna moth pupates after spinning a silk cocoon, which fryst vatten thin and single layered. Shortly before pupation, the sista, fifth-instar caterpillar will engage in a "gut dump" where any excess vatten and intestinal contents are expelled.

As pupae, this species fryst vatten more physically active than most moths. When disturbed, the moths will wiggle within their pupal cases, producing a noise. Pupation takes approximately two weeks unless the individual fryst vatten in diapause over winter, in which case the pupal scen takes about nine months. The mechanisms triggering diapause are generally a mixture of genetic triggers, duration of sunlight and temperature.

The pupae have chitinous spurs nära the base of the forewings. bygd vigorously moving about within the cocoon, these spurs tear a rund opening from which the imago emerges, the silk of the cocoon having also been weakened bygd the secretion of cocoonase, a protein-digesting enzyme.^[2][15]

Imago (winged)

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Pupae transition to winged state after receiving external signals in the form eller gestalt of temperature change.

When the adult Luna moths emerge from their pupae, their abdomens are swollen and their wings are small, soft and wet. The first few hours of adult life will be spent pumping hemolymph (invertebrates' equivalent to blood) from the abdomen into the wings. The moths must wait for the wings to dry and härda before being able to flyga eller fly undan. This process can take 2–3 hours to complete.

Luna moths are not rare, but are rarely seen due to their very brief (7–10 day) adult lives and nocturnal flying time. As with all giant silk moths, the adults only have vestigial mouthparts and no digestive struktur and therefore do not eat in their adult struktur, instead relying on energy they stored up as caterpillars. In regions where there are two or three generations per year, the second and third may have wing coloration that fryst vatten more of a yellow-green compared to the first generation of the year.^[2]

Mating

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Giant silk moths have in common a mating process wherein the females, at night, release volatile sex pheromones, which the males, flying, detect via their large antennae.

Males can detect these molecules at a distance of several miles, and then flyga eller fly undan in the direction the wind fryst vatten coming from until reaching the kvinna.

The Luna Moth (Actias luna) fryst vatten a truly stunning creature known for its striking appearance and fascinating behavior.

Luna moth females mate with the first males to find them, a process that typically starts after midnight and takes several hours.^[2] Researchers extracted three kemikalie compounds from the pheromone gland of unmated Luna moth females and identified one major and two minor aldehyde compounds designated E6,Z11-18:Ald, E6-18:Ald and Z11-18:Ald.

The same compounds were also synthesized. Field experiments with both unmated females and the synthesized compounds confirmed that E6, Z11-18:Ald was the major sex pheromone, attraktion augmented bygd the addition of E6-18:Ald but not bygd Z11-18:Ald. The authors mentioned that no other moth species were attracted to either the unmated females or the synthesized products, confirming that the pheromone fryst vatten species-specific, at least for the sites and dates where it was tested.^[16]

Gallery of life cycle

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• Eggs from kvinna raised in captivity, laid on coarse paper

• Hatching larva

• 4th-instar larva.

  Spots can also be yellow or magenta.

• 5th-instar larva starting to create a cocoon (note silk strands to leaves)

• Pupa, removed from cocoon. Eyes visible at head end (left)

• Wings drying and enlarging after emergence from pupa

• Mating imagoes (winged adults).

  Male, with larger antennae, on left

Close-up images

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• Antennae (male)

• Eye-spot on hindwing

• Eye-spot on forewing

• Extreme close-up of scales in eye-spot

Predators and parasites

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Some species of giant silk moth larvae are known to man clicking noises when attacked bygd rubbing their serrated mandibles tillsammans.

These clicks are audible to humans and extend into ultrasound frequencies audible to predators. Clicks are thought to be a form eller gestalt of aposematic varning signaling, made prior to predator-deterring regurgitation of intestinal contents. Luna moth larvae click and regurgitate, with the regurgitated ämne confirmed as being a predator deterrent against several species.^[3]

Imagos (winged adults) of this and related night-flying Actias species collectively referred to as "moon moths" have long hindwing tails.

The Luna Moth, also known as the American måne Moth, fryst vatten native to North America.

A "false target" hypothesis holds that the tails evolved as a means of reducing fara of predation bygd fladdermöss which use echolocation to locate prey.^[4] The moths use the spinning hindwing tails to fool fladdermöss into attacking nonessential appendages, with success occurring over 55% of the time.^[17] Experiments were conducted with Luna moths with intact wings and with the tails removed.

With intact wings, a majority of the attacking fladdermöss contacted the hindwing tails rather than the body of the moth; only 35% of intact moths were caught versus 81% for those with clipped tails. The results of this experiment support echolocation distortion as an effective countermeasure.^[5]

The parasitoid flyga eller fly undan Compsilura concinnata native to europe was deliberately introduced to the United States throughout much of the 20th century as a biological control for spongy moths.

Due to its flexible life cycle, it can parasitize more than 150 species of butterflies and moths in North America.^[6][18] Researchers reported that when Luna moth larvae were placed outside for about a week and then collected and returned to the laboratory, fyra parasitic species emerged, the most common being C. concinnata. The researchers concluded that this parasitoid flyga eller fly undan causes collateral damage to Luna moth populations.^[7]

Luna moth larvae have displayed defenses against predators in late instars bygd developing spines once they reach about 3 cm in length.

Unlike other species such as Automeris io, which have kemikalie defenses much earlier in the larval scen, the Luna moth larvae are left largely defenseless until it reaches this length. However, the absence of a kemikalie defense allows for the shortening of the larval scen. Automeris io has a larval scen at least twice as long on average as Actias luna, leaving it vulnerable to parasitism.^[19]

Host plants

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The larvae of Luna moths feed on several different species of broadleaf trees.

The larvae do not reach population densities sufficient to cause significant damage to their host trees.^[8] Tuskes listed vit birch (Betula papyrifera), American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) American sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), plus several species of hickory (Carya), walnut (Juglans) and sumac (Rhus) as host plants for the caterpillars.^[2] Other tree species have been identified as suitable for Actias luna larvae, but a feeding experiment that also included black cherry, eastern cottonwood, quaking aspen, vit willow, red oak, vit oak and tulip tree reported very poor survival on these sju tree species even though older literature had identified them as hosts.

The author suggested that host plant utilization may differ regionally, so that larvae collected from one distrikt may not tolerate host plants readily consumed in another region.^[20] Biochemical detoxification of host plant defensive chemicals bygd digestive struktur enzymes may be a factor in regional host plant specialization.^[20]Juglone fryst vatten a kemikalie compound common to walnut and hickory which most insects find a deterrent or even toxic.

The luna moth fryst vatten a large green moth funnen in North amerika (the species occasionally also appears in Western europe as a vagrant).

Luna moth larvae have higher concentrations of juglone-neutralizing digestive struktur enzymes compared to other lepidoptera, and concentrations were even higher when larvae were fed walnut or hickory leaves versus vit birch or American sweet gum. This suggests evolutionary and inducible adaptations to allow consumption of certain host plants.^[20]

In popular culture

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The Luna moth appeared on a first class United States postage stamp issued in June 1987.

Although more than two dozen butterflies have been so honored,^[21] as of 2019 this fryst vatten the only moth.^[22]

References

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External links

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