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Project Noah Nature School
Unidentified Psychidae
For some time now, I have been taking pictures of Bagworm Moths whenever I was presented with an opportunity. This started long before a reliable internet service became available which enabled me to join Project Noah. In those days, I was taking pictures for my own little catalogue of our local biodiversity and when I saw a Bagworm, I would snap one or two shots, ostensibly for insertion into my catalogue. But it was done half-heartedly, in the knowledge that the photos would never make it onto my pages. I knew so little about these moths that it would have taken a great effort to create even a small entry in my catalogue and there were so many interesting organisms out there which were "easier' because of the availability of information. However, since I have started contributing to (and benefitting from) PN, this is all changing and I am even becoming quite interested in these "difficult" Bagworms. I have been searching through my old photos of Bagworms, looking for anything particularly interesting or small point that I may have missed, back in those "half-hearted" days and the specimen in this spotting has provided just that. I took only one photo of this Bagworm. The second picture is just an enlargement to show more detail. The point of interest for me is that this bagworm has affixed itself to the plant, which indicates that it is now pupating. The method of "fixing" appears to be a small pad of sticky silk which I have seen on many specimens, but this one appears to have something additional. If you look at the enlarged picture, you will see a robust looking silk tether. The end attached to the plant seems to have the same kind of sticky silk pad, the other end goes into the detritus which makes up the "bag" and how it is fixed cannot be seen. This reminds me of Papilionidae pupae which affix their posterior to the plant with a sticky silk pad and then add a silk tether which goes around their abdomen and also sticks onto the plant (like a car seat belt). I have not seen this "tether' on any other Bagworm pupae. So, I cannot yet be sure of its purpose, but there are a number of academic papers I can have a look at and I will add here anything that I find on this subject.
This Bagworm Moth was spotted on roadside foliage, a short distance from our house.
My previous spottings of Bagworm Moths - https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/74... https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/16... https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/14... https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/13... https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/11... https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/95...
Spotted on Aug 15, 2017
Submitted on Oct 5, 2022
4 Comments
To tomk3886
Nice to hear from you and I am so happy that you didn't get hit by Hurricane Ian. It was just gut wrenching to watch the news and see the terrible suffering of so many people.
On a less serious note, thanks for letting me know that you have a picture of a Bagworm with a tether. I breathed a sigh of relief because your picture confirms that these things really do exist. When my photo was the only one I knew of, I had some doubts. Obviously, it was right there in my picture, but was I completely misinterpreting what I was looking at? Self-doubt is never comfortable and I suffer from it from time to time. It usually lasts until I can find something that demonstrates where I went wrong and I can excuse my "human error" and put it out of mind. More often, it can linger for a long time, but your confirmation of another one has relieved me of all that. Now I can concentrate on my next "crazy theory":-) What was it that Julius Caesar said about Cassius - "Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much: such men are dangerous." John B.
I could only find a couple of bagworm pics that I had saved. But sure enough one of them had a tether.
I was in the Florida Keys, beautiful weather there, when the storm headed north, right for Tallahassee. Headed home thinking of all the storm prep I was going to have to do. By the time I got home the storm was looking like it would hit Tampa and head across the state. No threat to us. The weather at home was beautiful and still is. Southwest Florida took a brutal beating though.
Hi Tom, thanks for your comment. I'm still looking through old photos to see if I have any more tethers that I missed, but so far I have not found any. Its my own fault for being so careless. It is so time consuming and frustrating, knowing that I might not find another. You might say I am at the end of my tether :-) On a more serious note, I was thinking about you and your family last week when that terrible storm was doing so much damage in Florida and it was a great relief seeing that you were still active on Project Noah. That told me that you must be OK. John B.
I will look for tethers from now on.