The Beautiful Wood-Nymph

click on images to enlarge

Meet Eudryas grata - Beautiful Wood Nymph.  Jill spied this moth lurking on the siding of the house disguised as bird-poop.  Neither of us has seen an insect like this before and I spent hours poring over our Audubon Guide to Insects and Spiders and came-up blank on an identification.  Frustrated, I emailed a digital image to the Insect Diagnostic Lab at the University of Wisconsin Department of Etymology and asked for help. Within a very short period of time arrived this response:  

Hi Tom,  

It's a moth commonly known as the "beautiful wood nymph" (Eudryas grata).  They can be fairly common and the caterpillars are often associated with vine-type plants (grape, Virginia creeper, and similar) outdoors.  You can find additional images and information about these insects here: http://bugguide.net/node/view/3060   

---PJ 

What is interesting to me is if you look at the distribution map (above)  Eudryas grata has a wide distribution in the eastern half of the United States. The species appears to be absent from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, occurring from central New York, Massachusetts and southward to the tip of southern Florida.  Westward the species enters Canada in southern Ontario, but otherwise is unknown from the country.  The most northern records and the northwestern limit of the species are in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota. The species occurs throughout the southeastern United States, westward to eastern Texas and northward through the eastern Great Plains to North Dakota.  

Not much, if-anything, about appearances in the Door Peninsula.  

What I have learned is that adults are nocturnal and fly primarily in June, July, and early August throughout most of its range.  You learn something every time you raise your observational awareness (or look for bird poop on the house). 

Raising a toast to a errant and unusual moth.

Photo - Wikipedia