06/16/2026
You flick the porch light on a June night and within minutes the soft-winged crowd arrives — and most people never look closely enough to see how beautiful, and how harmless, the regulars are. None of these is eating your house or your sweaters. The fabric-eaters are tiny and live in dark closets; these big showy ones at the bulb are pollinators and moonlight wanderers.
Meet five you'll see this month.
The luna moth — pale green, long-tailed, the size of your palm — is the showstopper. It has no mouth and only about a week to live; it's here to find a mate, nothing more.
The rosy maple moth — small, in sherbet pink and yellow like a frosted candy — looks invented. It isn't. It's one of the most common big moths in the East.
The underwing moths — drab gray bark-mimics at rest — flash startling orange or red hindwings when they jump, a trick to spook a hungry bird.
The sphinx, or hawk, moths — fast, heavy-bodied, hovering at flowers like a hummingbird at dusk — are some of the best night pollinators you have.
And the tiger moths — furry, boldly patterned — whose caterpillars are the woolly bears you'll meet crossing the sidewalk in fall.
Five moths at one bulb, and not one is a threat to anything you own. They're the flowers' night shift, and the reason your porch is briefly the most interesting place in the yard.
Turn the light off when you're done. They've got a moon to follow.
