floridensis
beneath the spanish moss with janson jones
Cosmosoma myrodora, 23 April 2015
Cosmosoma myrodora, the Scarlet-bodied wasp moth;
Volusia county, Florida (23 April 2015).
Though it may at first look a bit like a slightly-radioactive, somewhat-discotheque wasp, this is in fact a moth. More specifically, this is a Scarlet-bodied wasp moth, an entirely benign species of moth that meekly scratches its way through life along the coastal regions of the American southeast. In Florida, they’re most commonly observed along what we call the I-4 corridor —from the Volusia county area southwest to Hillsborough county–, but they do occur throughout the rest of central Florida and have even been spotted as far south as the Florida Everglades region.
floridensis 