I had the best experience on Saturday night! Bayside Creeks Catchment Group held a nocturnal foray into Melaleuca Environmental Park at Lota to survey moths at a light sheet, and we saw so many interesting creatures!
The survey was conducted as part of Brisbane's Big Butterfly Count, a community engagement and citizen science project being run through March to gather butterfly records across the city. Someone had the bright idea to not leave out the nocturnal cousins of butterflies, and to them I am very grateful!
The evening was hosted by the friendly Keith Brown from Bayside Creeks Catchment Group, and the participants gathered around the light sheet set-up to hear expert commentary from John Moss and Wes Jenkinson, who both have many years of experience with lepidopterans.
For those interested in the set-up, there was a metal frame tied upright with rope and pegs, over which a white sheet was draped. A bracket holding two bulbs was placed over the top, with one side illuminating the sheet with a black light, and the other doing so with a mercury vapour light. These were powered by a generator placed nearby. The lights attracted insects onto the sheet, where they were then studied and admired.
The moth highlight of the night was a stunning emerald geometrid called Protuliocnemis partita (see photo at the top of this page). It was beautiful enough to capture the hearts of us amateurs, and uncommon enough to excite the experts as well.
There were plenty of other insects to see besides moths, with one of my favourites being a vivid-green katydid, shown below with some fuzzy Panacela moths. The katydid belongs to a genus called Polichne, but many of the species in that genus are undescribed and unnamed by scientists. It is truly indicative of the mystery of the invertebrate world that one can potentially find unnamed insects even in our suburbs.
There are an estimated twenty to thirty-thousand moth species living in Australia, many of which are also unnamed or entirely unknown. Even when a species is named and rather common, its caterpillar form and larval food plant can still remain a mystery, which is exactly the case for the white-banded owl moth (Donuca rubropicta).
As the evening progressed and the light sheet became full with moths of all sizes, predatory insects started to arrive as well. The mantid lacewings (Mantispidae) made a particularly strong impression on many of us, as we saw them hunt down prey right before our very eyes on the sheet. These creatures are a type of lacewing that have strong, grasping arms and claws reminiscent of a praying mantis. I had never seen any until this night, so it was a real treat to see so many up close and personal. The photo below shows a mantid lacewing attacking a Panacela moth that is quite a bit bulkier than itself, as other moths take flight nearby.
Beetles from a variety of families were also present at the light. The Eucalyptus longhorn (Phoracantha semipunctata) was the most attention-grabbing of them all with its outrageously long antennae, but I also noticed a ground beetle (Carabidae), click beetle (Elateridae), some soldier beetles (Cantharidae) and many scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae) visiting as well.
With so much insect activity in one place, it was easy to overlook smaller species. Some of these happened to be vividly patterned, however, and I documented a few with my camera. The two spotty moths below are from different families; the one on the left is Atteva niphocosma (Yponomeutidae) and the one on the right is Ethmia clytodoxa (Depressariidae).
I had such a wonderful night, and the experience really opened my eyes to not just the incredible invertebrate diversity in our midst, but a new way to find, appreciate and record these creatures. I am very grateful to John and Wes for all the information they were able to impart about moths; I learned about the itchy caterpillars of the white cedar moth (Leptocneria reducta), heard tales of a wood moth so big it was mistaken for a bat, and obtained practical tips on setting up and taking down a light sheet of my own.
Thank you John, Wes, Keith, the teams at Bayside Creeks Catchment Group and Brisbane’s Big Butterfly Count, and all the friendly moth enthusiasts I met that made the night so enjoyable!
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