Noctua Pronuba, Large Yellow Underwing

Day 255: Breaking away from botany for a bit, I would like to say how much I appreciate the team of entomologists who sit patiently beside their computers under the aegis of BugGuide.net, ready to offer identification of insects to those of us who can't tell a Monarch from a Viceroy. Within fifteen minutes of the time I submitted "Unknown moth" to them, I had a solid ID of Noctua pronuba, Large Yellow Underwing for this critter and the image had been added to their database. It is no small point of pride that I can say I have over sixty photos in the BugGuide files, everything from butterflies to beetles and even a spider or two. None is a particular rarity, but many are those tiny flutterers which others dismiss as "little grey moths," not worth the time it takes to capture photographically. I like knowing the names of things. Once named, I can look them up and find out more about their habits: where they live, what they eat, when they metamorphose. Every scrap of information gleaned as a result of having a name put on a species adds to my knowledge of the world and helps me understand how I and other humans fit into the scheme. For example, Noctua pronuba is an introduced species, accidentally brought to Canada. It sometimes occurs in "epidemic outbreaks" in alpine meadows. It feeds on a wide variety of native wildflowers, and thus could pose a threat to the alpine meadows of Mount Rainier National Park.