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A Virtual Moth event
for National Moth Week 

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Yes, a moth! This is a plume moth in the family Pterophoridae. Read more about plume moths under the Activities section below. Photo courtesy of Kathy Keatley Garvey.
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Not a moth! It is a fly in the family Psychodidae. They are sometimes called moth flies or drain flies. Yes, you can see these tiny creatures in your bathroom sometimes. Photo courtesy of: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Psychodidae_01.jpg
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Videos

*Learn to build your own professional spreading board and insect drawer using wood working instructions found at  Resourceful Entomology 
Enjoy these pre-recorded tours of the Bohart.
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Facebook Live Q & A
with Jeff Smith

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Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey
Jeff Smith has spent over 32 years curating the lepidoptera (order of butterflies and moths) collection at the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology. 

Jeff will show amazing moths from the collection and answer questions posted during this live streaming event. 

Note: You do not have to have a Facebook account to view or participate. 

Questions to ask Jeff Smith:
What is the largest moth?
What is their relationship to butterflies?
What is unique about them?
Why should we be concerned with moth diversity?

You can ask (or rather type in the comments during her Facebook Live talk) these questions and any others that have to do with insects.
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Activities

Coloring Pages- Morning Glory Plume Moth
Coloring pages courtesy of Meghan Crebbin-Coates, a UC Davis student and scientific illustration intern with the Bohart.  

What is this?
​It's a tiny moth!

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Morning glory plume moth (Emmelina monodactyla), Vacaville, CA, April 2, 2020. Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey
PictureArtichoke plume moth (Platyptilia carduidactyla) life cycle drawing by Mary Foley Benson.
​These tiny moths are in a group of moths called plume moths or "T" moths. They are in the family Pterophoridae and they are less than an  inch or 18-26 mm wide.  These "microleps" (lep is short of lepidoptera, the order of butterflies and moths) are not hard to find, but they are often overlooked because of their small, slender size or mistaken for other insects like mosquitoes.

The photograph above is a morning glory plume moth, Emmelina monodactyla. According to John De Benedictis, a Bohart museum associate and expert of microleps, "this is a widely distributed species that feeds on bindweed and other morning glories. The coloration is variable and tan specimens are more common that the pale gray ones."

John has spent decades exploring moth diversity here in Davis and in UC Davis Reserves near Lake Berryessa. "We've recorded at least 16 species of plume moths from Davis, Cold Canyon and Quail Ridge.  There may be a few more that we've not been able to identify.  Many species seem to fly mainly at dusk and early evening and do not seem to be strongly attracted to light, so it takes a lot of light collecting to get a good representation of what's around here," he said. 

The most common species in Davis are:
1. The morning glory plume moth
2. Anstenoptilia marmarodactyla (no common name), a smaller species that feeds on various mints, especially soft mints like spearmint, basil, shiso, etc.
3.  The snapdragon plume moth, Stenoptilodes antirrhina,  If you grow snapdragons, this moth will almost certainly turn up and can be flushed out of the plants by tapping them or observed flying over and around them at dusk, sometimes in great numbers.

Adults of many species (incl. the 3 mentioned above) can be found through much of the year.  The larvae of many species feed externally on foliage, while others bore into flowers, stems or root crowns.  The artichoke plume moth Platyptilia carduidactyla, is the most important pest species, but the "worm" in your artichoke is sometimes a pyralid moth, Pyrausta subsequalis, rather than the plume moth.
 
Fun plume moth facts:
As their specific names suggest, Tricoptilius pygmaeus (known from Cold Canyon ) is the smallest species in the Sacramento region and Oidaematophorus grands (found in Davis and Cold Canyon) is the largest.

More information:

​Check out Kathy Garvey's BugSquad blog for more information on her encounter with a  plume moth in her backyard in Vacaville. 

Deborah Matthews is the North American pterophorid specialist. She is a scientist at the Florida Museum of Natural History and recently discovered 4 new species of plume moth in the Bahamas. 
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Deborah Matthews displays Bahamas plume moth specimens from the Florida Museum’s collection. Florida Museum photo by Jeff Gage.
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History 

We started holding a moth themed open house near Mother's Day in May, because people who are enthusiasts for moths are called "moth-ers."

We then switched our programming to align with National Moth Week. This is an organized 9 day event every July that spans the globe. There are private and public events. We usually hold a public event at night in the museum with cookies, hot chocolate and tea. This year because of COVID-19 and museum closures we are holding the event virtually for the first time. We are hoping this virtual event will inspire people from all over to hold their own private moth-focused events.  

 

Check out these other science/insect resources from other museums:

These are approximately hour long presentations and discussions with Cal Academy scientists. Brian Fisher, who got his PhD at UC Davis studying ants, is one of the featured people. 
This amazing bug fair is going to be on-line this year. Also, check out their new exhibit on urban L.A. entomology.