I was walking yesterday evening and noticed a beautiful large yellow butterfly sitting atop a bottlebrush tree and decided to pause and enjoy the journey and take a closer look.
As I neared the tree, I also saw a large number of the most amazing looking bugs feeding on the bottlebrush flowers. I thought that they were so cool that I called Jeanie on the cell and urged her to come over to take a look, which she and Cali did.
After getting home, I set about trying to figure out what the bug was. It took a number of iterations of Googling, but I did finally figured out that it was a Polka-dot Wasp Moth (also known as the Oleander Moth), which is the adult stage of the Oleander Caterpillar. Although it would appear that many (most?) consider this insect to be a pest, and I guess I would if I had lots of oleander bushes, I think it is really beautiful, both at rest, and in flight.
Here are some other sites with pictures and information if you are interested: http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/orn/ole_cpillar.htm, http://www.floridanature.org/species.asp?species=Syntomeida_epilais#photos, and http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/IN/IN13500.pdf
In my searching, I found a site which I thought was really cool. The site is What's That Bug? In addition to the great information and photographs, I found it nice that this site considers bugs to be more than just nasty things that need to be eliminated. And, if you see a bug that you can't identify, and you can't figure it out using their photos and search engine, just snap a photo and send it to them, and they will do their best to help identify it for you. It has a number of good Oleander Moth photos, and addition to other cool moth photos here.
Digg It!
Bookmark it!
Posted by David at September 16, 2007 11:23 AM