Parapediasia decorella 

August 5, 2002

Had to get some help pinning a name on this one. 

I found these little pyralids in a meadow here in Killingworth.  I couldn't find a name for it in any of my references, books or online, and posted this picture on a couple of listserves (LEPS-L and, through my friend Bill Yule, MOTH-RAH).  It brought in a flurry of good speculations from Europe to the ends of the North American continent.  It was Brian Scholtens who nailed it and said it was actually a fairly common moth in the east.  There are a few look-alikes, hence the confusion, but that bent orange stripe through the middle of the wing is an important key to this species.

The wingtips look as if they were dipped in liquid gold - you really gotta see it in person!