Joe Pye weed leaves being eaten

[Kurt S]

I have something small eating my Joe Pye weed leaves. It was a nice plant bought from WildTypes and something has devastated the leaves to an outline of the veins.
I finally resorted to putting an insecticide on it and a few new leaves appeared. Then it rained and now those leaves are gone too.
Same thing happens to sunflowers. I've only seen one get tall enough to escape the foe.

I don't think it's slugs - I don't see the trails and it's a 18" tall plant.

Any ideas? I think this pest is significantly limiting the biodiversity. I know there's some other plants that were here, but aren't making an appearance.

Thanks!

[George Hammond]

Since it's not eating leaving the veins, I guess a caterpillar or smallish beetle.

This page:
http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/savanna/plants/sw_joepye.htm
mentions some potential suspect moths.

A lot of insect herbivores are nocturnal, hiding during the day and feeding at night. You might want to go out with a flashlight and see what you can find after full dark.

Sunflowers and joe-pye weeds are both in the same plant family (Asteraceae), so might have some insect herbivores in common.   

[Kurt S]

George,
That gives me some direction and helps a lot.
Thanks!!

[George Hammond]

George,
That gives me some direction and helps a lot.
Thanks!!

You're welcome, I hope you'll post if you solve the mystery.  I'm also glad you were able to read my semi-coherent post.  "Caterspamar"? Where did that come from?

[Kurt S]

I wondered what that was - I almost googled it!

[George Hammond]

Ah, I just figured it out in a thread in the Test Drive section. The forum has automatic filtering of the word "p i l l" (without the spaces), and converts any appearance of the word to "spam". I imagine it does this for many other words too.