First time I've seen one of these....

[gixrj18]

I found this strange little thing on my Enc.tampensis today, this is the first time I have seen this species. It just sat there slowly gyrating it's fuzzy tail, round and round. Don't know what he was doing, mating ritual I assume.

[smweaver]

Very cool, whatever it is. Surely we have at least a few amateur--and maybe professional, if we're really lucky--entomologists on this site that will help you identify it.

Steve

[Vanessa]

Strange....I notice he has two of them.

[whygreenberg]

You could try this site What's That Bug? to see if they have it identified. It's a great website!

[cb977]

Where's ?

[gixrj18]

Originally Posted by cb977

Where's ?

It may be too cloudy for her to see the big "D" distress signal!

[gixrj18]

Thanks Yvan, I'll check it out!

[cb977]

Originally Posted by gixrj18

It may be too cloudy for her to see the big "D" distress signal!

[Dorothy]

I saw the Big D in the sky and am still checking on this one ..
I am at this site - Moth Photographers Group -- Archbold Biological Station Moths 03
but my computer takes a long time to upload the photos ..

[cb977]

Found it on the site Yvan gave!

Melonworm Moth
(11/17/2005) I think it's a moth
I just took this picture of a moth that has a fuzzy tail that was swinging back and forth very slowly with each of the little hairs moving as the tail moved. At first I thought there was a spider on the end of the moth until I got my nose up close. It measured about 3/4" from wing tip to wing tip. I live in the Yucatan very near the border with Belize. Sorry the picture quality isn't better.
Kathe Kirkbride



Hi Kathe
Luckily, in the case of getting your moth identified, insects do not respect international borders. Quite fortuitously, the first page we opened in our archaic Holland Moth Book revealed a plate of 60 moths including your little Glyphodes hyalinata. We had no common name. We located a mention on BugGuide, but no image. More web searching turned up no images, but we were led to a site, the Moth Photographer's Group from the Mississippi State University Entomological Museum. It pictured two other moths in the genus Glyphodes, but not your moth. Your moth was pictured further down the row under a different genus, Diaphania hyalinata. So, there was some reclassification of the genus after Holland's book was published. There are some nice live images of your moth which goes by the common name Melonworm Moth. Retro-searching BugGuide with the new information gave us a hit and the following information: it is in the Family "Pyralidae, and the caterpillar is a pest of cucumber, melons, pumpkins and squash." Identifying your species has lead us to a wonderful new website, the Moth Photographers Group.

Here's the actual link:
What's That Bug: More Moths

Scroll down almost to the bottom of the page...

Way cool site, Yvan!!!