280 days of Urbpandemonium #124
You would be forgiven if you thought this little orange and white moth had a bit of a tropical look to it. In fact, it's thought to native to Florida and points south, its caterpillar feeding on a tropical plant called a paradise tree. So what is it doing in the temperate urban forest of Boston? It turns out that another plant, the tree-of-heaven Ailanthus altissima, is suitable food. That turns out to be great luck for the moth now called the Ailanthus webworm Atteva aurea* since the tree-of-heaven is an invasive urban dweller that cracks sidewalks and colonizes vacant lots. The moth can't tolerate our nasty winters, and so migrates up from Florida each summer.
*Atteva = Origin unclear. Speculation: perhaps from Modern English (though obsolete, and dialectical) atter, that from Old English aettor poison, pus, plus Greek suffix eu (or ev) good, well, with an adjectival ending -a. (English atter poison is not related to adder, the snake, incidentally.) This seems semi-plausible, given that the author of the genus was English. Aurea means "golden."