Salt Marsh Moth - Tumblr Posts
Moth of the Week
Salt Marsh Moth
Estigmene acrea
The salt marsh moth is a part of the family Erebidae. This species was first described in 1773 by Dru Drury. It is also known as the acrea moth.
Description Both male and female moths have white heads, thoraxes, and forewings with a varying pattern of black spots on the forewings, with some moths having no pattern at all. They also share an orange-yellow abdomen with a vertical line of back dots. On the male, the hindwings are the same organge yellow while on females the hindwings are white. Both males and females have three or four black dots on each hindwing.
Wingspan Range: 4.5 - 6.8 cm (≈1.77 - 2.68 in)
Diet and Habitat The caterpillar was first thought to be a pest to salt-grass, but in fact it prefers weeds, vegetables, and field crops such as dandelions, cabbage, cotton, walnuts, apple, tobacco, pea, potato, clovers, and maize. Adults do not feed.
This moth is found in North America, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Colombia, and Mexico. It prefers open habitats such as openings in woods, thickets, farm fields, grasslands, and marshes. It is called the “salt marsh moth” because it is common in coastal salt marshes (tidal marshes) along Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts.
Mating This species of moth does not emit pheromones from the tip of its abdomen but instead from its throat or the to of its abdomen. These moths are seen from May to August but can be seen all year in southern Florida and Texas. It is presumably during May and August they mate in most parts of their range while they mate all year round in Florida and Texas.
Yellowish eggs are laid in clusters on the host plant leaves. Females usually produce 400 to 1000 eggs in one or more clusters. It is possible to find a single egg cluster containing 1200 eggs. Eggs hatch in four to five days.
Predators This species is frequently parasitized as larvae, usually by flies in the Tachinidae family. In Arizona, the most common parasites were Exorista mellea and Leschenaultia adusta while two other parasitic flies were also seen: Gymnocarcelia ricinorum and Lespesia archippivora.
Both the larval and egg stages are oararzitized by Hymenopteran parasitoids such as Apanteles diacrisiae; Therion fuscipenne, T. morio, Casinaria genuina, Hyposoter rivalis; Psychophagus omnivorus, Tritneptis hemerocampae Vierick; Anastatus reduvii; and Trichogramma semifumatum.
A cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus is known to harm this species but there are little data on its importance and effect.
General predators such as lady beetles, softwinged flower beetles, and assassin bugs prey on these caterpillars, but are not thought to have a large impact on population.
Fun Fact This species has 4 subspecies: Estigmene acrea acrea, Estigmene acrea arizonensis (Rothschild, (1910)) (Arizona), Estigmene acrea mexicana (Walker, (1865)) (Mexico), Estigmene acrea columbiana (Rothschild, (1910)) (Colombia).
(Source: Wikipedia, University of Florida, Missouri Department of Conservation)
World like this needs more butterfly/moth photos in it. Here’s a few of mine.
Salt marsh moth, Estigmene acrea
Sachem Skipper, Atalopedes campestris
Pearl Crescent, Phyciodes tharos
Eastern Tailed-Blue female, Cupido comyntas
Bent-Line Dart, Choephora fungorum
