Tag: prairie insects

The Yucca and its Moth

It sounds too good to be true; two species helping each other survive for millions of years – each getting as much as they give.

For more than 40 million years there has been a relationship between yucca plants and yucca moths.  It’s a particularly important one because neither the yucca or the moth can survive without the other.  The moth’s larvae depend on the seeds of the yucca plant for food, and the yucca plant can only be pollinated by the yucca moth.

In the central United States, soapweed yucca (Yucca glauca) is pollinated by a moth known as Tegeticulla yuccasella.  Each spring, adult moths emerge from underground cocoons and the males and females meet up with each other on yucca plants to mate.

When a female is ready to lay eggs, she first goes to a yucca flower to collect pollen.  Unlike most moth species, yucca moths have two short tentacles near their mouth that they use to scrape pollen from the anthers of the flower.  As she collects the sticky pollen, the yucca moth packs it into a ball and sticks it under her head.  She then flies off to another yucca flower.

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