Ottawa (Dunrobin), ON Canada

23 April 2005   12:28AM EST  (top)
10 May 2005   11:01PM EST  (second row, left)
30 April 2004   11:14PM EST  (second row, right)
14 May 2004   10:17PM EST  (third row, left)
9 May 2005   11:02PM EST  (third row, right)
2 June 2005   10:01PM EST  (fourth row, left)
15 May 2003   10:31PM EST  (fourth row, right)
29 May 2005   10:18PM EST  (fifth/bottom row, left)
11 May 2005   12:13AM EST  (fifth/bottom row, right)

Zale minerea, the Colorful Zale, is one of a dozen species of Zale that have been recorded from the Ottawa area (J.D. Lafontaine, pers. comm., 2001).  My thanks to Dr. J. Donald Lafontaine and Mr. James T. Troubridge of Agriculture Canada for their kind assistance with a number of identifications of specimens, including six of those illustrated above.

Zale minerea is a extremely variable species, to the point where one begins to wonder whether all the variations actually are of the same species.  Looking through the drawers of specimens in the Canadian National Collection, and viewing photos identified as Zale minerea on the Internet, it is strikingly evident that, to paraphrase the old Sesame Street song, one of these moths is not like the other.  The question, then, is whether one of these moths is not the same, and to that end, a number of specimens have been contributed to on-going DNA studies in the hope that we will eventually know whether what we now call Zale minerea is a single species with wide variation, whether these moths represent more than one species, or whether we have a good many misidentified specimens in many collections!

In light of the variability of this species, I will not attempt to describe the appearance of Zale minerea, but rather rely on Covell (1984), who noted the frequent presence of yellow in the median area, and also the white tinting evident in a number of the specimens above.  He also pointed to the dark patches near the apex and middle of the outer margin.  Covell also notes a wingspan of 3.7 to 5.0 cm for this species.  More photos of a number of variations may also be found in The Owlet Moths of Ohio (Rings et al., 1992) and in Le Guide des Papillons du Québec (Handfield, 1999).

According to Handfield (1999), the larvae of Zale minerea feed on willow and birch primarily, but also may feed on a considerable variety of other trees. He indicates an adult flight season from about mid-April into early July for my general area.

My records to date for Zale minerea (each date representing "the night of") are in the table below: