It was a magnificent afternoon one recent day and my plan was to sit in the Adirondack chair that I set up under my cottonwood tree to read. The book was a biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt that focused on his efforts to save the forests and wildlife of the United States and I was having a wonderful, relaxing time. I paused to think about something I had just read and in doing so I looked upward at nothing in particular.  

That’s when I saw an enormous moth “hiding” under the eave of the roof by the front door.

I hesitated for only a moment before fetching my camera. The moth was upside-down against the wood of the house but I had no difficulty getting close to the thing because I am fairly tall. I captured several nice photographs of the moth from a side angle, but I knew the image I was really looking for would require me to take a gamble. I grabbed a takeout container from the kitchen, placed it under the insect and then gave the moth a nudge.

As I had hoped, the moth responded with vigorous flight.

This was ideal because I wanted the moth to wear itself out. The moth had been resting in complete shade and would be quite cool. This would only allow a brief burst of energy before the moth would be forced to stop and “warm up its engines.” When the flapping ceased I readied my camera and lifted the container. Everything went my way and there, resting on a page in my field journal, was a magnificent moth that was completely spent and attempting to frighten me by flashing its brightly-colored underwings at me.

Jackpot.

It took me a while to discern the identity of this particular moth, but I am now comfortable calling it a Sweetheart Underwing (Catocala amatrix). About 3 inches in length, this is a large representative of the largest family (Noctuidae) of the order Lepidoptera, which contains the moths and butterflies. With just under 3,000 members found in North America and nearly seven times that many found worldwide, this really is a large group of animals.

The sweetheart underwing has forewings that are colored in such a way as to resemble the bark of trees. This allows adults to remain well concealed during the daylight hours when hungry birds would otherwise detect and devour them. If a resting underwing is disturbed, it will spread its forewings to the side and expose the hind wings, which are drastically different in color. In some species, the hind wings (or underwings) are black, whereas in others they are a combination of yellows, oranges and reds with black bands. The whole idea is to startle a predator with a flash of color and then escape.

I spied my particular moth with ease because it was resting on a surface that was red, which really made the moth stand out. Had the same moth been resting on the trunk of the cottonwood tree I never would have noticed it. However, I have seen several of these beautiful moths this summer because the eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) is a favorite food for sweetheart underwing caterpillars. I’ll just go ahead and say that I am very happy that the tree growing next to my deck attracts what may be the most beautiful of all the underwing species.

And I think that the beauty of these moths is obvious when reviewing a list of the species’ names. In addition to the sweetheart, there is the darling, the betrothed, the penitent, the old maid, the wife, the widow, the tearful, the youthful, the bride, the charming and the wonderful. Only large and dramatic creatures of great beauty could evoke so many names that personify them. In contrast, the caterpillars are so fantastically camouflaged to look like twigs and tree bark that they would leave a taxonomist grasping for suitable names.

These large and impressive moths will by flying until mid-October when the first frosts kill them off. After that, only the eggs of the species, which have been strategically laid in the nooks and crannies of the bark of trees, will have a chance at surviving the winter. Birds like chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers will search for eggs like this throughout the winter, but some of the eggs will survive to feed on the new leaves of their host trees in the spring.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 22 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service and the Massachusetts State Parks and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.

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