Anita’s Blog – STEC After Dark . . . .
- jjvanm
- Jun 29
- 6 min read
It was a Banner Night: 86 individual species!
If you missed the “After Dark @ the STEC” moth event June 17th, you missed some really active moth sheet activity. But not to worry, there’s a summer full of events.
The later it got at the STEC, the better the show.
With summer sundown around 9 p.m., you'll want to stay late at any of the local Mothing Events, After Dark, Mothing by Moonlight, Flashlight Nights, Night Hikes, Moon Walks, Light Trapping, Glow Nights, Full Moon Hikes and Bat Flights and all the other nocturnal fun that’s scheduled this summer.
Check your favorite parks and venues for night events.
Back to STEC. Last week our sister chapter, Rio Grande Valley Chapter, Texas Master Naturalist partnered with the South Texas Ecotourism Center for “After Dark @ the STEC.” Our chapter was invited to participate.
Expert Macro Photographer and Moth Aficionado Joseph Connors and I (avid student of mothing) volunteered. Joseph arrived just as the sun was setting and I was finishing up my 20-minute why-you-want-to-get-excited-about-mothing presentation to an enthusiastic audience.
Joseph headed to the Center’s outdoor stage and set up his portable moth sheet unit and hung two super-duper professional UV Entoquip lights on the sheets.
RGVCTMN President Savannah Zarate, had earlier set up a couple of mothing stations at the end of the upper deck, using black lights.
Upper deck mothing station:
At 8:44 a large Common Green Darner dragonfly announced its arrival, bumping its wings against the sheet, which thrilled the children. We helped them release it back into the dark.
8:56 a Glassy-winged Sharpshooter arrived, a half inch long, large leafhopper; a good-looking bug, but so not beneficial; considered agricultural pests. One periodically won’t do a lot of damage.
8:58 a Chestnut-banded Wave
Two spiders, a few typical moths, several fun beetles and a Swag-lined Wave Moth graced the sheets during the next half hour.
9:31 Joseph pointed out a red Mite, about the size of a pin head – really, that tiny. He said it’s an arachnid, count the legs; I did, later at home in the photo – yep, 8 legs.
I thought mites were chiggers. I looked that up. Chiggers are closely related to mites, Harvest mites anyway; maybe not our mite, which may be a type of velvet mite.
Interestingly, the biting stage (larva) of a chigger has only six legs, and feeds on humans and animals – injects intense itch-producing substance. The adult stage is the non-biting stage; once larvae mature into adult mites they have eight legs; they move into the soil and feed on detritus, insect eggs and small arthropods. But I digress.
It was time to check out the other station.
We departed the upper deck to brave the mosquitoes down at the stage at Joseph’s set up.
The first thing that got my attention was a big, beautiful, bright green stink bug (Loxa viridis). Before I snapped a shot of it, something new-to-me captured my attention:
9:39 Pero radiosaria; New moth for Joseph, too. (Meske’s Pero Moth, Pero meskaria, is common here)
9:42 Another something-new-to-me: Erythrina Borer, Terastia meticulosalis
9:46 Beautiful Pseudopyrausta
9:48 a Bird Dropping Moth
9:49 Meske’s Pero moth
9:52 Seaside Lady Beetle (a first for Joesph and me and only 14 observed on iNat in the Lower Rio Grande Valley)
9:54 Spotted Pink Lady Beetle
Insects were landing fast by 10 p.m., as the event ended; a hub of people was still oohing and aahing all the colorful moths and night flying critters – and a few crawlers and scurrying things.
10:01 Fractured Western Snout for a quick last shot before I headed home to check my moth sheet 20 miles away.
My STEC tally for the night was 50 individual species of moths and night-flying insects, 1 caterpillar and two spiders: Metazygia wittfeldae and Araneus detrimentosus.
Joseph has uploaded 30 species of moths so far, 1 butterfly, 33 other insects, 2 arachnids, and 1 crab. The Crab and Seaside Lady Beetle were new species for him. Something else new to both of us was a Scriptured Leaf Beetle that has been identified as Tamaulipan Freckled Pachy by Texas Entomologist Mike Quinn.
Check out all the moths and nighttime creatures uploaded to iNaturalist.org from the night’s activity at this link:
I like to look up moth host plant preferences for new moth species. The Erythrina borer’s larvae, amazingly, consume the pods of native species and commercially grown Erythrina (Fabaceae) – which happen to be prevalent at the STEC, having placed 100 Erythrina trees during their initial planting in 2022. Most of us know the common name of these drought-tolerant, hummingbird and oriole attracting small native shrubs: Coral bean, or Eastern Coral Bean Tree, Erythrina herbacea.
Erythrina Borer Moth below and Eastern Coral Bean Tree blooms. (Photos by Anita Westervelt)
As exciting as it is to pair an insect with its host plant, sometimes it’s not what you want to know. The Erythrina borer moth is more detrimental than beneficial. Sadly, their larvae bore into stems, seeds, and twigs of the Erythrina trees, often causing severe dieback and plant death. Erythrina borer moths range from Central and South America. In North America, they are particularly in southern states from Florida to Louisiana, southern Texas and Arizona.
Forewings of this attractive, well-camouflaged moth are tan with marble-patterned markings of light to dark brown; hind wings are white. The moths have a 1¼” to 2” wingspan, depending on location, generation and diet of the caterpillars.
A rule of thumb, a couple of moths aren’t as worrisome as an infestation would be.
The Pero radiosaria moth has only four observations in the Rio Grande Valley on iNaturalist.org; three of those observations were posted during the Moth Night at the STEC event. The moth is observed more around San Antonio and points west into southern parts of New Mexico, Arizona and California. Host plants have not been well observed. Other members of the Pero genus contain generalist moths whose caterpillars feed on a wide variety of geographically local native hosts.
Make your plans for Moth Week 2026 and other local summer nighttime activities.
Annual National Moth Week is Saturday July 18 through Sunday, July 26, 2026. It is a worldwide citizen science event celebrating the ecological importance and beauty of moths. This year’s theme goes beyond moths: Exploring Nighttime Nature. It’s a great opportunity for Master Naturalists to earn Volunteer Hours by assisting at events as well as observing and recording information as a citizen scientist; Advance Training presentations are an option, too.
Ways for the Community to Participate
Mothing: Set up an outdoor light or hang a white sheet in your backyard to attract and safely observe moths.
Citizen Science: Photograph the moths you find and submit your records to platforms like iNaturalist or Project Noah to help scientists track biodiversity.
Check out the link: https://nationalmothweek.org/
Contact local parks to locate a wide and interesting variety of summer nighttime activities and events and National Moth Week happenings to attend or volunteer. A short list follows. As we find out details for other events we’ll put them up on our blog.
STEC After Dark, South Texas Ecotourism Center, 501 W. State Highway 100, Laguna Vista, www.stec-lv.org, 956-772-0210. 2026, hours extended to 10 p.m. July 1, July 15, and July 29 evening/night hiking, live invertebrate presentations, black-light mothing. Bring your own flashlights. Free.
South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center 956-761-6801 spibirding.com Glow Night Moth Night, Saturday, July 25, 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. $7.A Banner Night!
Quinta Mazatlán, McAllen, 956-681-3370 http://www.quintamazatlan.com/ July 18, 2026, 9 p.m. - midnight. Mothing By Moonlight: mothing stations, dimly lit trail, arts & crafts, bat detector; bring a flashlight. $5.
National Butterfly Center https://www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/ 956-583-5400; 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. S’mores & Moths Event, every 3rd Friday during the summer.
