freelancing

Wow. So dramatic. Looks like a space alien! What size was this specimen?

If it's not a male velvet ant, then it's some other type of wasp - not sure what. While he was walking around a picture frame in my friend's house, he was sluggish, and not moving very quickly - so I wrongly assumed he had been in the house for days and was waning for lack of food.

I scooped him into a clear sandwich container with a lid and he made an audible noise that sounded like a scream (I'm totally serious) - it wasn't very loud, but it was the strangest sound coming from a wasp.

The minute I got outside with him and lifted the lid, he flew about 2 feet away and landed on my pants leg - and after I did the "Curly Joe" dance trying to get him off, he flew with great speed to the top of a tall oak and then flew off into the distance.

FD - per bugguide.net, you were right - it's Nemoria bifilata. Thanks!

Submitted to buigguide.net... it does look a lot like a White-barred Emerald Moth, thanks for the tip, FD!

I've grown up seeing these moths hither and yon - never knew there was such a variety in things that looked so similar.

I have a home brew macro lens on my iPhone - or I wouldn't have been able to get shots of this critter's eyes like this. I had no idea this seemingly flat-looking moth had such large eyes for it's seemingly small body size... nor the type of eyes where you could tell the little guy/gal was looking at you. :)

Thanks for the feedback. I will submit to bugguide for analysis.

Thanks!

Thanks for the ID.

Thanks for your ID suggestion!

Yes, I was sad to see it this way, too.

Definitely a plume moth from the T-shape of body & wings at rest. Specific species can be tricky to identify.