Small brown moth with metallic yellow spots

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:02 pm

I have no idea what this small brown moth is, but I was struck by the metallic yellow patches on its wings. Location is Wooster, Ohio. It was sitting on the side of my car this morning. I couldn't get a very good picture of it there, so I brought it inside to run a stack. Getting it calm enough to do that was a bit challenging. The trick that worked was to let the beast sit on a damp cloth over ice cubes. After photographing it, I was able to release the beast with no apparent harm.

Here's the appearance as it sat on the car.

--Rik

Technical data: Canon T1i, MP-E 65 at 2X and f/5.6, Speedlite 580 EX II in ETTL mode, small Opteka diffuser, 26 frames ZS PMax, no retouching.

rovebeetle · Post by **rovebeetle** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:27 pm

I love Micro-Lepidoptera. The only problem is, there are too many

and I have to cope with too many beetle species already.

Anyway, this one is Caloptilia bimaculatella - Fam. Gracillariidae (unless there is another very similar species which can be separated only by study of the genitals

).

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 5:47 am

Excellent -- thanks for the identification, Harry.

Added: So, the caterpillar of this critter starts out as a leaf-miner and grows to become a leaf-roller. Interesting! microleps.org has a good description of the genus.

--Rik

lauriek · Post by **lauriek** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 4:40 pm

What a pretty little beastie! I often don't look closely at tiny moths, at first glance they appear pretty boring but if you do bother to look closely there is often something pretty/interesting about them!

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Sun Oct 09, 2011 9:36 pm

Here is another view of the same beast.

This stack is with the same optics and lighting as the one posted above, but this one was shot handheld while the previous one was done with a StackShot rail.

18 frames, handheld, over a time span of 16 seconds in burst mode, using a "lean-in, lean-out" technique that made two passes over the moth in hopes of getting something OK even if it moved, and better if it didn't. The result is not a sequential stack, so it would have to be reordered to be suitable for DMap. This one is PMax, no retouching.

It's interesting that in this shot, both of the moth's antennae are held up off the substrate. The other stack was shot about 50 minutes later, and sometime in that interval both antennae had drooped to touch it. I didn't notice until I processed the photos.

--Rik