A Pretty, but Confused, Moth in my Yard

Sounds like me tackling the challenges of native landscaping

"Catching bugs."

It was my childhood response 9 times out of 10 when the grown-ups responsible for watching me asked what I was getting up to on a lazy summer day.

Living in the suburbs, I had more options than urban kids. My insect captives were still limited to 5 or 6 common species, though. Bees, potato bugs, cabbage butterflies, ants. Maybe some crickets. Grasshoppers were exciting.

It was the highlight of my summer when my neighbor would take us kids out to some rural overgrown field, and we would hunt praying mantises in the tall grass.

Moths were very low on the interesting bug scale.

Almost every moth I saw in my childhood environment was a tiny, drab brown one fluttering around porch lights at night. Or annoying me from inside our pantry after sneaking in the house hidden in a bag of birdseed. More fly-like than moth. Certainly nothing resembling the endearing image of a "real moth" I had in my mind—chubby little critters with fuzzy antennae and big, soft white wings.

No, those types of moths, like most of the colorful bigger butterflies, were only to be found in the country.

I wonder if I looked up any of those countryside critters back then if they would've been categorized as "common."

They sure didn't seem all that common to me if I had to drive over 2 hours to my grandma's house to catch a glimpse of them. If I was lucky. Yet I had the ignorance of youth. I assumed all the bigger, wilder insects needed to be in areas with lots of space and fewer people. I equated those areas with more naturalness. Which actually wasn't the case at all.

The cool thing about bug diversity is that it has very little to do with how much space there is. It's just about having the right plants. The perfectly green, monoculture lawns that made up most of the suburban backyards on my street did not have the right plants.

BDHD. Bug Deprivation Herbicide Disorder. I blame it on my obsession for carrying glass jars with holes poked in their lids everywhere I went. You can develop it when you are not surrounded by enough weeds in your formative years.

Because it's those "weeds" that are critical to insect, and in turn all, biodiversity.

I'm sure this fact is nothing new to most reading right now. My story isn't intended to be a soapbox piece for shrinking your grass lawn.

But please. Do strongly consider it.

Because then, like me, you might also find a small moment of child-like wonder in your backyard. Courtesy of a moth called the Confused Euscara.

Unlike their popular and flashy cousins, I'm looking at you, Monarchs, Confused Euscara don't inspire a lot of backyard nature enthusiast essays. My own story aside, of course. Most of the online info is your basic taxonomic and identification details. The most interesting "fact" that every website repeats is that these confusaria moths are the only ones in their genus found in the US and Canada.

It's a bit confusing why the only moth of its kind would be named "confusing" based on how it appears from the other family members we'll never meet.

The researchers who discovered it must have lived in the country.

When I sighted the perfectly shaped pale wings and cute little antennae crawling off of the thistles I'd just pulled in my backyard, it didn't look confusing at all. He didn't fly away and wasn't even bothered when I hovered my phone 8mm from his body so Seek could identify him for me.

That must have seemed like the obelisk from 2001 blocking out the sky to the little guy.

I just couldn't help it. I was delighted by confusaria's perfect archetypal moth appearance. I'm over 40, and bugs can still delight me. That's good, because a few seconds earlier I was heartily vowing retribution against all thistles for each time their razor-sharp spines managed to pierce my leather gloves.

In the pros and cons of all-natural, chemical-free yards, thistles are The Con. It is a never-ending battle hand-pulling them out of my wildflowers and grass. I know I'm a broken record; I point it out in nearly every story I write about my yard. I simply must emphasize the intensity of how strongly these MF'ing thistles, phragmites following a close second behind, conjure disgust on my part.

All of that ire lifted off into the breeze once the eyes of my confused moth friend met mine.

I threw my thorn-studded gloves off and gently coaxed the moth onto my battered hand. He was probably still flabbergasted by the space obelisk that had just returned into the void from whence it came. You know, my pocket.

I glanced over to him every few minutes as I finished collecting up all the bodies from that day's battlefield and stuffing them, painfully, in a yard waste bag. Red, welt-covered arms aside, I still smiled at the sight of his wings standing out creamy white against the green of the safe patch of shrubs where I'd placed him.

"Hey guys," I loudly announced as I walked briskly into the house, little bits of grass flying off my hair in the wake of my entry. "Did you know the Confused Euscara is the only moth in its genus in America?"

"Everybody knows that, Mom," is what my husband and kids did not say.

It didn't matter; my poor BDHD brain was already spiraling onto a new thought.

What does it mean to see a bug for the first time in my yard, one designated as 'least concern' in conservation status, only after 12 years of planting native trees, flowers, and shrubs?

Kind of a buzzkill if I'm being honest.

You have to understand that when I first saw the confused moth, I immediately felt gratified for all the blood I'd shed naturalizing our large yard. It's why I whipped out that phone and so grossly invaded his space. Because I assumed the moth was not a common species and was therefore important to document on Seek. For anyone unfamiliar, this app uses citizen science to compile plant and wildlife observations researchers can utilize.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

In our current climate of delisting, deregulating, and defunding, what does that mean for the uncommon bugs? It took 12 years for enough confusaria to populate my yard in order for that one to flutter in front of me. And trust me, I look when I'm out there working or enjoying the wildflowers.

I find great joy watching the sky light up with hundreds of twinkling fireflies on a warm summer night. Listening to a symphony of insect wings as the evenings creep closer towards fall. Smelling sweet pollen so thick in the air that bees jostle for space on each and every blossom.

My yard is "untidy," but God is it alive.

Don't get me wrong. I get it.

Why others are ruthless with weeds, unruly plants, and pests.

I am still waiting for the mosquito population to equilibrate into something close to tolerable without drowning my entire body in bug repellent each time I step outside. I'd love to empty a pot, just one pot of last season's dirt, without apocolyptic numbers of rabid ants bursting out, bent on flaying the flesh from my bones. The nightmare monsters crawling out of the shadows in my basement are enough to send anyone screaming to safe, hermetically sealed walls and windows in shiny new condos.

I've actually done that.

One night after a particularly bad autumn storm, every house centipede within a square mile radius must have been flushed through the floorboards of my house. I packed the kids up at 9:30pm on a school night and went to my mom's 3rd-floor condo. House centipedes are the one creature that terrifies me. I swear, I've seen some as big as a mouse dart across my bedroom ceiling.

As a former bug-obsessed child, admitting this phobia doesn't come easy. I mean, I showed you the photo of the tarantula I caught and released. That was after walking barefoot into the kitchen, where it was chilling in the middle of the night.

I've actually been bitten more times by crickets than all other bugs combined. Mosquitoes don't count. Yet all the rational facts in the world mean nothing to the imagined fear of a house centipede crawling across my face while I sleep.

Any wonder I experience while observing the beauty of nature is, I thought, heartily balanced by pain and stark terror.

But a few days ago, in the midst of my least favorite outdoor chore? Even now I am still surprised by my immediate, unbidden thought upon discovering that common, adorably befuddled moth.

Worth it.