In the night hours, the glow acts as a magnet for moths, luring them out of the woods so Spicer can collect them for breeding, as he has done for more than 20 years.

"There's all these little haunts when you get into this moth-collecting stuff," he said recently on an all-night trip to Bastrop County. By 1 a.m., Spicer, an out-of-work molecular geneticist from Pearland, had netted a Luna moth under a bank of fluorescent lights at a Diamond Shamrock gas station and spotted a Polyphemus moth fluttering above some brightly lit Exxon Mobil gas pumps.

Yet he also believes these electric illuminations have contributed to the decline of one of his favorite moths, the elusive Cecropia, the largest of the 70 species of so-called silk moths in the United States that make their cocoons out of silk. Lights distract them from their once-a-year duty to reproduce.

"The lights stay on all night long at these gas stations," he said. "If you're a moth, it's too much to handle."

Spicer hasn't seen a wild Cecropia around Houston for years, despite setting out breeding-ready females for bait.

To restore the hole in the area's ecology, Spicer has hatched a plan to reintroduce the Cecropia to the Houston area.

"To me, the disappearance of the Cecropia is a symbol of what happens when a city grows rapidly, and what you end up losing," said Mike McCormick, who has raised silk moths in the Houston area since he was a child.

While such attempts have been tried for large predators, such as wolves and falcons, re-establishing an insect into the wild -- especially one that most people will never see -- is rather rare.

"I think it's been tried, but I don't think it has ever succeeded," said Edward Knudson, a Spring Valley radiologist who is considered an expert on moths in Texas.

By next year, Spicer plans to release 500 female Cecropia moths into parks, nature preserves and undeveloped areas around Houston. His goal is to collect enough from the wild, such as in Bastrop and Bexar counties, and from fellow hobbyists to generate 3,000 eggs. Some he will raise in his suburban back yard; others he will give to schools and volunteers willing to baby-sit the creature through its yearlong metamorphosis.

"If we could get one female Cecropia, it could lay 50 to 60 eggs. That'd be gold for Houston," said Spicer, as he drove down a dirt road in a remote part of Bastrop County at 2:30 a.m. After searching numerous gas stations, without a single Cecropia sighting, it was time for Plan B.

On a blooming branch of Mexican plum along the roadside, Spicer hung a mesh cage with several Cecropia females. From 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., they will "scent," releasing chemicals into the air that signal to male Cecropias they are ready to mate.

But sometimes, the call of the wild is answered slowly.

The sun was rising by the time a single wild male Cecropia flew excitedly around the cage.

The exact reason for the virtual disappearance of Cecropia moths around Houston is hard to pinpoint. Silk moth populations the world over have been declining because of a variety of factors, including urban sprawl, with its light pollution and destruction of the trees moth caterpillars feed on.

Other experts contend that the introduction of a parasite in the Northeast to control the devastating gypsy moth has taken a toll on silk moth populations. Locally, the spraying of insecticides to control mosquitoes may play a role.

McCormick, 61, remembers driving around his hometown of Dewalt in Fort Bend County and seeing Cecropia cocoons hanging off the bare willow branches. He hasn't seen a wild Cecropia since.

"To me, it's almost like climbing a mountain," he said of the plan to reintroduce the Cecropia moth to Houston. "It's kind of a romantic impulse."

But some experts doubt the effort can succeed in the long term. Part of the problem is that, unlike the five other silk moths common to the Houston area, Cecropias breed once a year and the caterpillars have an insatiable appetite.

Adult moths will hatch from cocoons to coincide with the time when their caterpillars' favorite feed plants are blooming. Their sole purpose during their short life is to mate. Once a pair hooks up, they are connected from dawn until dusk, and die about a week later.

The eggs hatch about 10 to 14 days after that, followed by incredible feasting. A full-size Cecropia caterpillar can munch through a bucket full of leaves in a day, making their care a challenge.

"It's a huge undertaking," said John Tveten, author of the book Butterflies of Houston and Southeast Texas. "For one thing, a full-grown Cecropia moth caterpillar is huge, and they eat an awful lot. If you have a couple of dozen caterpillars, it will require an armload of willow branches a day to feed them."

Another concern is disease. Raising insects in such close proximity can lead to an outbreak that wipes out a population.

For these reasons, most experts believe a reintroduction will aid the population in the Houston area for only one or two seasons.

"They will be a little more common for a couple of years," said Richard Peigler, a silk moth expert from San Antonio who holds a doctorate in entomology from Texas A&M University. "But I don't believe Cecropia is going to exist in more numbers after large numbers are put out."

Peigler believes pockets of Cecropias still exist in Houston, likely in some suburbs. But even if they were to become extinct, Peigler said, it wouldn't likely be detrimental to the environment.

But Spicer, a native of England whose world seems to revolve around moths, is undaunted. His latest plan is a natural extension of a hobby he began as a child, when he would collect moths and flatten them between the pages of encyclopedias.

Even now, he has the nocturnal insects pinned up in shadow boxes that surround his dining room. A crayon drawing of metamorphosis by his 6-year-old daughter proudly hangs on the kitchen cabinets. He met his wife, Kimberly, at the Cockrell Butterfly Center. Their dog, Luna, is named after a moth.

In his back yard, dozens of real-life cocoons wiggle in a wood-frame box, where bright green caterpillars munch on an oak branch. Grown-up moths -- some as big as human hands -- lazily flutter about in suspended cages.

His dream is to see them back in the wild.

"It's an opportunity to bring something back that was lost," he said. "Something that most people didn't know was lost."

Even if he fails in his larger goal, he may have an impact nonetheless.

"Whether he is going to be able to bring back the moth to earlier population levels is an open question," said Mike Quinn, an entomologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. "But he is raising people's awareness. People that witness the life cycle of a moth will never look at an insect in the same way again."

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