Florida Gardening: S FL Galloping Gardeners 2007-10-22, 1 by artcons

artcons wrote:
This is a early morning flash shot of a variety of Polka Dot Wasp moth that I just took a few minutes ago. Note the wing color is different than the usual Polka Dot Wasp Moth we see around here. I will check out it's variety later on.

The picture was taken of it feeding on my Buttonsage, Wild Sage, Lantana involucrate, a Fla native. I started this plant from a cutting I took early last summer. This bush is proving to be a good butterfly attractor for nectar.

I did have to zoom in and crop it to get it large enough to see in the picture. Once again I had to maintain a distance of about five feet from the moth to be able to take it's picture. If you look closely you can see the white polka dots on it's blue body. The wings were a light orange without serious dots. It was flying slow which is typical for this species. Although it moved when I tried to get in closer for a better shot, it still came back over and over again. This is the best shot out of eight.

Art