At the Moth Tree

Implicit Arches [Lacinipolia implicata]

Last night [August 30, 2006,] following rain earlier in the day, the Moth Tree was oozing sap in new places. Perhaps that was why several new moths showed up. One, a Yellow-striped Armyworm moth, was too high to photograph. The other, a gem-like little moth with pale green forewings filled with black, brown and brilliant white markings, has a typically enigmatic name -- Implicit Arches. It arrived at about 9 pm and stayed for more than an hour. We could watch its long proboscis eagerly slurping down sap. The photo above does not do it justice, alas. I think that something about the brightness of the white markings disturbed the automatic focus feature of my camera.

Other names in the same subfamily as Implicit Arches -- the Hadeninae--are: The Thinker, The Nutmeg, Intractable Quaker, Hitched Arches, Stormy Arches, Confused Woodgrain, Cloudy Arches, The German Cousin, Disparaged Arches and many more. I can just imagine those 19th century moth namers sipping at their brandies and laughing uproariously as they came up with one unlikely name after another.