Luring clearwing moths

There is a beautiful group of moths known as clearwings that at first glance look rather waspish. Rather than having wings covered in scales like all of the other Lepidoptera (which roughly translates as scaly wings, or perhaps more strictly tiled wings), they’re wings a transparent, but for the supportive struts.
Red-belted Clearwing
These are generally day-flying moths and look like tiny shimmering jewels if you catch sight of one. The males are attracted to sex pheromones exuded by the female. As such, it is possible to draw them to a lure impregnated with the appropriate sex pheromone for each species. The moths that arrive at the lure can then be counted and ticked, perhaps even photographed in the name of (citizen) science.
Currant Clearwing
I purchased a set of pheromone lures from Anglian Lepidopterist Supplies ( a company that does exactly what it says in its name). I had previously used a lure for the Emperor moth with great success regular readers will recall. In the clearwing set there are lures for ten clearwing moth species. I began putting lures out individually on likely days – warm and breezy – back in May, but it is only into June that I’ve had success with the clearwings.
In early June, a Red-belted Clearwing was drawn to the target lure. By mid-June I was trying others and discovered that the lure for a different species, the Large Red-belted Clearwing drew in the smaller cousin – 14 of them, in fact! I put the lure out for th...

Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - June 14, 2021 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Lepidoptera Source Type: blogs