Elegant Day Moth

Some critters don’t live up to their name.  A male squirrel, for example, is called a buck.

“Look at that majestic buck!” is hardly what comes to mind when I see a tiny squirrel bouncing across a mountain road like a fussy apostrophe.

It’s a squirrel.

The elegant day moth does live up to its name.  This moth, sometimes called an elegant sheep moth, is found in mountain meadows throughout the mid-section of the Rocky Mountains.  According to one of the online articles I found online, sighting an elegant moth might be a rare event.  This description is certainly apt in my experience.  Yesterday, I found a pair of elegant day moths mating on a stem of tall grass in the meadow near my cabin.

I don’t recall having ever seen them before yesterday.  I immediately retrieved my camera and captured the images posted here today.  I only discovered the name of the moths by searching the internet based on my images.

Elegant day moth larvae feed on wild rose, willow, aspen, snowberry and other such trees and shrubs.  They are fast fliers, flapping about close to the ground about during the daylight hours of summer.

--Mitchell Hegman