Yesterday was quite a busy day. We’re replacing a casement window that had some rot, and much of the early afternoon was taken up with assisting the resident expert who is deft with such things. Said expert and I have been bicycling four or five times a week, and in the early evening took an hour ride down a couple of back roads (we don’t peddle down busy Wolfskin Road). The pager went off as we were returning to our usual starting point, and so off we went to the fire station. Glenn, Ed, a few others, and I ended up at a woods fire until about 9:30pm, an unexpected but not entirely unwelcome evening with our compatriots.

During the mid afternoon installation, I did take a little foray, and spied this nice Acrea Tiger Moth, Estigmene acrea, clinging to a grass. At first I thought this might be a Great Leopard Moth, Hypercombe scribonia, but the spotting, leg striping, and abdominal coloration are distinctive for what is also known as Salt Marsh Tiger Moth. This one is probably nearing the end of her short adult life. Thingfish23 has some very nice photos at the above Bugguide link.

The Featured Creature website has quite a good page on Acrea Tiger Moths. Acreas are generally considered to be crop and garden pests, going after an astonishing range of plant species over many families. The Lepidopteran Host Plants Database lists nine plant species in almost as many families, but this is probably only the tip of the iceberg given the much wider list in the previous link. It’s geographical range is as broad as its host plant range: all of North America, except northernmost Canada.

The Kat Sematary is a congregating place for Marbled Orb Weavers, Araneus marmoreus, taking advantage of a couple of elderberry trees to spin their webs. I’ve already posted on this in early September, but such a fine and familiar predator deserves another hello.

This photo (and all today’s are linked to larger images) is a bit unbalanced in lighting so that the abdomen looks like it’s lit up by a lightbulb, but I think it brings out the eyes nicely without being too distracting.


The actual abdominal coloration under less exposure looks like this. This one was a second individual a few feet away from the first. My activities had disturbed her and she had ascended to the end of an elderberry twig.


What a bunch of legs and spinnerets! Lateral and ventral views: