Circular no. 643 n ^? Mlv ^ Y 



November 1942 • Washington, D. C. 



UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE m *&*<M$u m 



Owlet Moths (Phalaenidae) Taken at Light 

 Traps in Kansas and Nebraska 1 



H. H. Walkden, assistant entomologist, Division of Cereal and Forage Insect 

 Investigations, Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, and D. B. Whelan, 

 assistant entomologist, Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station 



United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology and 

 Plant Quarantine, in Cooperation with the Nebraska Agricultural 



Experiment Station. 



CONTENTS 



Page Page 



Introduction 1 Seasonal flight records 14 



Traps 2 Flight records of individual species . 18 



Collections • 3 Summary 18 



Proportion of the sexes 14 



INTRODUCTION 



The information contained in this publication was obtained through 

 the operation of light traps located at six widely separated points in 

 the Missouri Basin, in areas typical of both the semiaried and humid 

 phases of the agriculture of this region. It deals with the seasonal 

 occurrence and abundance of the owlet moths (Phalaenidae (Noc- 

 tuidae)), a group composed largely of such notoriously injurious pests 

 as the corn earworm, the pale western cutworm, the western army- 

 worm, the wheat-head army worm, and many other seriously injurious 

 cutworms inhabiting the region surveyed. This region is of excep- 

 tional interest to workers in applied entomology because it contains 

 an owlet moth fauna representing not only the strictly subterranean 

 species, controllable only by modification of cultural practices, but 

 those possessing either intermediate or surface-inhabiting charac- 

 teristics, and more or less amenable to insecticidal treatment. 



The data herein contained, revealing the distribution, seasonal 

 flight periods, and peaks of abundance of the various species, are basic 

 to, or of value in, the consideration of cultural control and other 

 methods for the suppression of the various pests involved. 



The use of light traps offered an efficient means of obtaining this 

 information. Accordingly, in the fall of 1934 traps were set up in 



1 Published as Paper No. 223, Journal Series, Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 433064°— 42 1 



