Planned and Wild Luna Moth Gardens for North America’s Luna Moths

Summary: Planned and wild Luna moth gardens in Canada, Mexico and the United States yearly await North America’s Luna moths as early as February and as late as May.

Luna moth (Actias luna), Buffalo River National Forest near Ponca, Arkansas: Csky, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Planned and wild Luna moth gardens in Canada, Mexico and the United States await North America’s Luna moths, whose arrivals warrant insect of the month status in Garden Gate’s February 2016 issue.

Overwintering cocoons become detectable amid deciduous leaf litter as early as February in northern Mexico and in the southern United States east of the Great Plains. Fallen leaves come from the same woody plants whose branches of fresh foliage accommodate the other three stages in Luna moth life cycles and natural histories. They drop from white birches (Betula papyrifera) in the boreal forests of Alberta, Canada, and in the hardwood forests from Saskatchewan east through Nova Scotia, Canada.

Alder (Alnus), moon vines (Ipomoea alba) and smooth sumac (Rhus glabra) emerge as smaller-sized, unlikely attractions in the hardwood forests of Mexico and the United States.

Shrub and vine members of woody plant populations otherwise find no representation amid the distinct preferences of North America’s Luna moths for medium- and tall-sized trees.

Persimmon trees (Diospyros virginiana) generate the same interest as food, host and shelter sources south of Canada’s southern borders that white birches get to the north. American beech (Fagus grandifolia), American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) and black cherry (Prunus serotina) trees hold their own in feeding and harboring egg, larval and pupal stages. The same is true of black walnut (Juglans nigra), black willow (Salix nigra), black tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica), mockernut hickory (Carya tomentosa), and pecan (Carya illinoinensis) trees.

Red maples (Acer rubrum) and sweet red-gums (Liquidambar styraciflua) join white oaks (Quercus alba) on lists of woody plants that sustain all four lepidopteran life stages.

Brown adhesive keeps each adult couple’s sole brood of over 200 eggs attached to the lower and the upper surfaces of food, host and shelter plants. The stage as oval, 0.047-inch- (1.2-millimeter-) high, 0.074-inch- (1.9-millimeter-) long, 0.24-inch- (6-millimeter-) wide eggs lasts 11 to 14 days in planned and wild Luna moth gardens.

Black or yellow-green first and second instars and yellow-green third through fifth respectively manage 0.32-inch (8-millimeter), 0.39-inch (10-millimeter), 0.59-inch (15-millimeter), 0.91-inch (23-millimeter) and 2.56-inch (65-millimeter) lengths. Second through fifth instars need to consume the previous week-long instar’s molted exterior whereas the purple-red pupa consumes the fifth’s brown-headed, red-spotted, white-bristled, white-lined, yellow-rumped cast-off.

Pupation occupies 14 days in northerly one-brood and mid-North American two-brood niches whereas southerly third-brood pupae overwinter when daylight lasts less than 14 hours a day.

A tooth in the furry thorax propels each blue-green female and every yellow-green male through the cocoon that coarsens, darkens, thickens when overwintering than when not.

The end of pupation quickens the end of Luna moth life cycles and natural histories since adults die within seven days, after mating and securing eggs. Adults, bigger and dark-rimmed northward and smaller and yellow-rimmed southward, rely upon pheromones, as species-specific scents, and two antennae, larger and thicker on males, to communicate. One eyespot per hindwing and 3- to 7-inch (7.62- to 17.78-centimeter) forewing-spans sometimes scare fellow nocturnalists intent upon the feeding that mouthless Luna moths cannot do.

The attraction turns fatal when ultraviolet lights, especially mercury vapor, draw caterpillars and moths to planned and wild Luna moth gardens and sabotage night-feeding and night-mating.

newly emerged Luna moth (Actias luna); Herndon, Fairfax County, northern Virginia; Monday, Sep. 2, 2013, 13:36: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Luna moth (Actias luna), Buffalo River National Forest near Ponca, Arkansas: Csky, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Arkansas_Luna_Moth.JPG

newly emerged Luna moth (Actias luna); Herndon, Fairfax County, northern Virginia; Monday, Sep. 2, 2013, 13:36: Judy Gallagher, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luna_Moth_-_Actias_Luna,_Herndon,_Virginia.jpg;
Judy Gallagher (Judy Gallagher), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/9661387908/

For further information:

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Available @ http://eol.org/pages/390368/overview

“From the WILD SIDE: Luna Moth, Actias luna.” Garden Gate February 2016, Issue 127.

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Available @ http://www.mlbs.virginia.edu/organism/actias_luna

Hall, Donald W. June 2007. Revised May 2012. “Luna Moth.” University of Florida Entomology and Nematology Department / Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Publication Number EENY-411 > Featured Creatures.
Available @ http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/moths/luna_moth.htm

Ilse Knatz Ortabasi. 27 September 2007. "Lunar Moth life cycle." YouTube.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atOSro3_W7c

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Available @ http://www.mlbs.virginia.edu/organism/actias_luna

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Available @ http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/luna_moth.htm

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Available @ http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Actias-luna

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Available @ http://www.wormspit.com/Luna.htm

Marriner, Derdriu. 14 September 2015. "Delaware Museum of Natural History: Bird Eggs, Dinosaurs and Seashells." Earth and Space News. Monday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/09/delaware-museum-of-natural-history-bird.html

Oehlke, Bill. “Actias luna: Eggs to Adult Moths, A Beginner’s Guide.”
Available @ http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/Actiaslunarearing.htm

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