For the past six years, my volunteers have been working to catalog a vast backlog of butterflies and moths. These came to OHS in part due to the Ohio Lepidoptera Survey, and in part due to the interest of various past curators at OHS and some of their friends. At one point, we had more than 16,000 specimens to work on. Some of these have complete data with them, but some have been lacking in identifications. Neither I nor any of my volunteers are experts in Lepidoptera, but at least the butterflies were pretty easy, with only about 150 species in Ohio. The moths, with estimates of more than 2 or 3,000 species in Ohio, are another story.
In comes John Peacock, from Marion, Ohio. John was one of the charter members of the Ohio Lepid-opterists, formed in 1979 to survey the state and study butterflies and moths. John collected his first
Cecropia cocoon on his way to school in 1948 and has “been hooked ever since.” After earning his Ph.D. in entomology at OSU in 1967, John worked as an entomologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Delaware, Ohio and for a time in Hamden, Connecticut. Despite working on many other groups of insects, moths of the genus
Catocala remained his strong interest. Now in retirement, he has more time to pursue these moths again.
In January of 2012, John contacted me wondering if he could come in and examine some of our
Catocala. “Absolutely” I replied – especially if you can help us with their identifications. Over the course of several additional visits, John compared and identified all of our moths in this group updating some new species that had been split from cryptic sister species since many of the specimens had been collected. That was no small task, as we had more than a dozen drawers similar to the one pictured here, with roughly 650 moths.
The Underwing Moths
The moth genus
Catocala is an interesting and attractive group. The word “Catocala” is roughly translated as “beautiful hind wings.” Following this interpretation, the group’s common name is the Underwing Moths. World-wide there are about 250 species, with at least 63 species here in Ohio. They get their name of Underwings from the fact that the upper surface of the hind wing is boldly colored – often in red or orange. These nocturnal moths remain inactive during the day, resting on tree trunks. Should a bird get too close, or spot one, the cryptically colored moth suddenly flashes its wings open – revealing the bright colors underneath. It is believed that the startling effect frightens the birds – at least momentarily – allowing the moth to escape.
Common names for the species are interesting in the Underwing Moths. In many cases, the common name is simply an Anglicization of their Latin species name. Hence,
Catocala crataegi becomes the Hawthorn Underwing – as
Crataegus is the genus name for the hawthorns, which this moth feeds on as a caterpillar. For whatever reason, such a simple and meaningful name is rare with the Underwing Moths. Instead, we find species names translated into common names such as: Sweetheart Underwing, Betrothed Underwing, Joined Underwing and Bride Underwing. It seems that a whole group of entomologists that named these critters had their minds on love and marriage!
Well, maybe not all the time. There is also the Consort Underwing and the Oldwife Underwing. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to their thoughts and actions for using those names. Perhaps we are seeing a history of the changing lives of these entomologists – or perhaps some were less enamored with marriage than others. Then we get the Once-married Underwing and the Widow Underwing. Finally we see the names of the Mournful Underwing and the Dejected Underwing. What a progression! Unfortunately, none of these names reflect the appearance of the moths, nor their habitat, nor their major food sources – names that could be useful in understanding their ecological roles or helping to identify them. So be it – we are stuck with the names assigned.
John solves Further Mysteries for Us
The importance of having the correct and updated scientific and common names for these 650 moths is greatly appreciated by myself and my volunteers. But John’s contribution does not end there.
As John was beginning as a young “moth-er” growing up near Marion, Ohio, he paid a visit to a long established lover of moths – Ray Romine. Ray was a postal carrier, but had spent many years intensely studying and collecting butterflies and moths. Ray’s collection begins with 1931, though mostly from 1938 through 1954. His collection of the Underwing Moths especially impressed John. Ray quickly became both a mentor and a friend to John, as did his wife Trella Romine.
In 1975, years after Ray’s early death, Trella donated Ray’s extensive collection of butterflies and moths to the Ohio Historical Society. The donated collection was in excess of 5,000 specimens – many pinned, some in paper envelopes. Most of these were collected in a variety of Ray’s favorite spots in Marion County, Ohio. While Ray carefully added location and date labels to all his specimens, unfortunately he did not bother putting his name on the individual labels. This is a practice of many private collectors – after all, they knew they were the collectors, and they had the specimens in their own collection.
A second unfortunate event took place in the mid-1980s, when a highly skilled and knowledgeable lepidopterist and moth specialist volunteered his time and integrated Ray’s collection into the overall OHS collections, while logging data in the Ohio Lepidopterists database. This was valuable work and it greatly expanded our knowledge of distribution and abundance of species in Ohio. Unfortunately, the volunteer did not apparently notice or consider the fact that Ray’s name was not on each specimen. The result was mixed. Now all specimens of the same species were grouped together in taxonomic sequence where any researcher could easily find them. But now we had no way to find and recognize which specimens had been collected by Ray Romine. This greatly confused our own record keeping and also greatly disappointed Trella Romine, who had so graciously donated her husband’s specimens and wished that his contribution could be more fully recognized.
Fortunately, since John Peacock had worked so closely with both Ray and Trella, he had grown to know Ray’s favorite collecting spots. As he worked on this one genus of moths – he also worked to provide us with a list of names of collecting spots, and the range of dates that Ray collected in those spots. This gave us a tool which we have been able to use with all our previously cataloged specimens and those we are still cataloging. Computerized searches pulled up hundreds of specimens that now we could attribute to Ray Romine, and the same tool enables us to watch for specimens we are currently cataloging. Now we can make an educated guess and label specimens from those locations and dates as “presumably collected by Ray Romine.” Of course, without the original placement of his name, we cannot be 100% positive, and in our new labeling we don’t want to give the false impression that Ray labeled these insects with his own name. But with that caveat, we are light years ahead in properly assigning specimens to Ray’s effort.
Many thanks to Ray and Trella for the wonderful collection that Trella donated, and many thanks to John Peacock for both his updating of the Underwing Moths, and his most valuable tool to resurrect the proper attribution of the specimens to Ray’s work.
Bob Glotzhober, Senior Curator of Natural History
Fort Meigs is a landmark of the War of 1812 in Ohio. The fort has been reconstructed on the foundations of the original structure and the entire Ohio Historical Society site preserves the historic battlefield. The OHS Archaeology staff has explored the archaeology of Fort Meigs on a number of occasions, but our most poignant discovery was the burial of two horses just outside the walls of the fort.
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