Field Observations of Bird Predation on Neotropical Moths

Field observations were made of moth-eating birds in northern Venezuela. Of the 908 moths attacked, 764 were eaten. Geometridae were least acceptable, followed by Arctiidae, Pyralidae, Sphingidae, Megalopygidae, Notodontidae and the largely palatable, Noctuidae. Moths that appear to be most clearly distasteful to some birds include Pantherodes unciaria Guene sharp-eyed predators, particularly birds, are widely implicated as selective agents. In general, cryptically colored moths are assumed to be highly palatable while the more brilliantly colored species are thought to be unpalatable due to the accumulation in their tissues of various poisons obtained from their larval food plants (Brower and Brower 1964, Brower 1970, Rothschild et al. 1970). Much indirect support for these views exists and many laboratory experiments indicate that vertebrate predators can learn to accept palatable and reject noxious insects on sight (Brower 1958a, b, c; Brower, Brower, and Westcott 1960; Brower and Brower 1962; Brower, Brower, and Collins 1963). However, comparable observations of uncaged predators in the wild are much less well-documented (Wickler 1968: 98, Brown and Vasconcellos Neto 1976, Calvert et al. 1979). Accordingly, we present the following observations of a group of moth-eating birds, viewed over a period of several months in northern Venezuela.