West Virginia Moths

In 2012, I had the good fortune of attending a presentation on North American moths by Seabrooke Leckie, co-author of the newly released Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America. The night began with an informative Power Point presentation on moths and was followed by an opportunity for the attendees to go outside and look at moths that had been attracted to several lights and white sheets that had set up. We caught numerous moths and brought them to Seabrooke who identified them and talked about them. It didn't take long before I became totally enthralled with the colors, wing patterns and incredible biodiversity of these largely nocturnal Lepidoptera. 

I now try to photograph every new species of West Virginia moth that I see. Most of the images below are of adults, although in a few instances I documented a species through the discovery of its caterpillar. These are record shots and are not intended to be artistic. I took the vast majority of these images through my iPhone camera.

Click on the links below to view photographs of the various micromoths and macromoths that I have photographed in West Virginia. They are listed according to their Hodges numbers..

Micromoths  
Macromoths