Virgin Tiger Moth, Apantesis virgo
Erebidae or Tiger Moth Family
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A
striking moth, with a handsome pattern of white to yellow lines on a
black background marking its forewings. When disturbed, it
suddenly spreads its forewings it reveal hindwings that vary from
yellow to scarlet, with black spots. The thorax repeats the
forewing pattern, while the abdomen repeats the hind wing motif.
The strinking yellow, red and black patterning is an example of warning
coloration that tells would be predators that the moth is posionous. The warning coloration, of course, will not work at night, so the moth has one more trick to keep bats at bay. It is able to generate ultrasonic clicks to confuse bats, if not jam up their radar altogether. The caterpillar is a dark brown, bristly thing with a yellow stripe down its back. It eats a variety of herbaceous plants from sunflowers to plantains. It overwinters as a caterpillar, wakes in the spring to eat some more, before changing to a moth. Native from Newfoundland south to Florida and west to Alberta, but is absent from the Southwest and the Pacific coastal states, and rare in the deep South. It appears to be uncommon around here, and was not known in Wildwood until 2020. |
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