Central California Moths Plate 1

This Central California Moths Gallery contains over 250 photographs of moths mainly found in Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley and the remainder in Santa Barbara County on the California coast. Central California has a wide variety of habitats attracting many different moth species besides those shown here. Some are invasive species such as the Old-World Cabbage Webworm, Hellula undalis. Most of the moths hide by day and feed by night. Some like the White-lined Sphinx Moth, Hyles lineata, shown above, feed both by day and night. Not all moths are attracted by the same means. UV light was used to attract night fliers. No other means were used to attract moths.

Considerable variation was found in certain moth species and photos of some of the variations have been included. Some of these variations may be due to differences between the sexes. No attempt was made to determine the sex of a moth.

Various photo references were used to identify species including but not limited to online sources such as the Moth Photographers Group Plate Series, Butterflies and Moths of North America, and The BugGuide. Of the books used, the Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America was the most helpful. Many of the Central California moths could not be positively identified to genus and species for these plates and in some cases even to their family. Those identified with confidence are marked with an asterisk.. The Smithsonian has estimated that there are nearly 11,000 moth species in the United States.