Gabriola sierrae or Gabriola dyariWhile doing laundry, I spotted this moth in the stairwell and figured it was worth a photo with its handsome features. I thought it'd be easy to ID. NOT! I've already spent an hour looking online and am still not satisfied I've found a match. My best guess would be the distinguished cypress owlet (Cutina distincta), but I don't think that's correct, mostly due to the fact they're not supposedly found in CA. The moth above is 16mm from head to forewing tip.
We get numerous moths in our 3 story stairwell, because several lights turn on automatically every night and we're right next to a public park with an oak and several conifers of various species. Unfortunately, I rarely take pictures of the moths that greet me every morning, since I'm either rushing out the door, or the moths are too high up and too tiny to get a decent pic.
ps 10/16/10 - Another moth originally posted as unknown. I'm going to go with the expert opinion of Chris Grinter from The Skeptical Moth that this is G. sierrae. Although, now that I've looked it up, I wonder if it might not be G. dyari, which according to BugGuide feeds on Douglas-fir (there's one not even 5 feet away) and flies from June to October.
We get numerous moths in our 3 story stairwell, because several lights turn on automatically every night and we're right next to a public park with an oak and several conifers of various species. Unfortunately, I rarely take pictures of the moths that greet me every morning, since I'm either rushing out the door, or the moths are too high up and too tiny to get a decent pic.
ps 10/16/10 - Another moth originally posted as unknown. I'm going to go with the expert opinion of Chris Grinter from The Skeptical Moth that this is G. sierrae. Although, now that I've looked it up, I wonder if it might not be G. dyari, which according to BugGuide feeds on Douglas-fir (there's one not even 5 feet away) and flies from June to October.
4 comments:
Post your picture on bugguide.net and I am sure you will get a response. The tomatoes are sometimes pinker than other times. The salsa just depends on the tomatoes!
Yay more moth ID's! This is a Geometridae (you were getting close!) Gabriola sierrae.
Thanks for the BugGuide recommendation, Jennifer and Steve. Fortunately, Chris Grinter stops by my blog on occasion to ID moths. I should post more for him.
Chris! Ha, I wasn't even close. As usual I edited this post with your ID. I actually started looking into geometrids but gave it up after an hour of searching through noctuids. Just curious, when I googled G. sierrae, the Moth Photographers Group came up with a lovely multi-plate page: http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/pinned.php?plate=17.3&size=m&sort=h I haven't figured out the site to know how to get that kind of page, instead of manually searching individual plates. Do you know how to get there, considering you contribute there?
That's a good point about it possibly being G. dyari. I'm not totally familiar with the Geometridae; but given the fir in your yard you're probably correct!
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