Hydriomena Speciosata

Day 204: Please, dear readers, do not hold me to the identification of this moth because I am only about 95% convinced that it is H. speciosata (no known common name). It is certainly a Hydriomena, and only two species are known to occur in western Washington. H. nubilofasciata feeds on oak; H. speciosata prefers Douglas fir and Western hemlock, the precise habitat in which this specimen was found (thus my tentative identification). It is one of the Geometrids, a family which includes loopers and inchworms.

Anyone who has spent any time in our northwestern forests in the autumn has at some point come across an inchworm suspended in mid-air by a single thread of silk almost too fine to see. Wafting on the slightest breeze, spinning slowly in a shaft of sunlight, the little caterpillars always make me stop to admire them. Neither are the moths uncommon, although they do not ordinarily fly so early in the year.

Given the early emergence I've witnessed in plants and frogs recently, I am more than ever convinced that our mild winter and low snowfall are responsible. What is disturbing is that not all species will respond to altered conditions in the same way or on the same schedule. This little fellow may be ahead of his food source by a month or more, and therefore may not survive.