Category: Lepidoptera

Not quite as active a night in nor around the actinic lure as it gradually got windier. But, still a reasonable number of specimens seen and a couple more NFYs.

Of interest a leucistic male Muslin, Tawn/Marbled Minor agg (NFY), Willow Beauty (NFY).

Also showing up Flame Shoulder, Common Pug(2), Bee Moth, Waved Umber, H&D, SSD, and non-aberrant male Muslin.

I tried to get an open-wing shot of the Pale Prominent sat on my stone staging, but it hopped off quickly and disappeared. Saw it on my office carpet a couple of hours later, let it fly to the window…got a sort of open-wing shot, but it was too flitty for focus.

 

Thank goodness for mothing…it’s certainly a distraction from the bleak outlook and political bullshine of the coronavirus, Covid-19 debacle. Thing is for much of this year, there haven’t been many moths drawn to actinic light lures that I’ve heard off. Lepidopterists on the various lep Facebook groups and around our county here have been reporting low number and low diversity.

However, that changed somewhat for my lure on the night of the 75th Anniversary of VE-Day. I’d spent much of the time handling virtual online events, such as my #FEVEG20, but by the evening, just after dark and after a couple of celebrater sherbets, the light lure beckoned.

It was a still, balmy evening, it had dropped from 24 degrees to around 15 Celsius at 23h00 and there was quite a bit of activity around the lure. flies, parasitic wasps, Bee Moths, Pugs, a Brimstone…a Pale Tussock, and more. There was a stunningly white with black spots, female Muslin on a California poppy stem next to the pond 5 metres away from the actinic. Intriguingly, some of the moths were more drawn to a bright LED panel I was using to have a quick look at the frogs in the pond (only one of the two has been visible this last week, #PondLife). No sign of any Box-tree Moth, the notoriously virulent beast from the East. They will emerge soon, I have warned neighbours who have planted a Box hedge that they could see it ravaged. They make nice hedges but now that this invasive species taking hold across various parts of the country, those hedges will succumb.

Anyway, the Pale Tussock had been joined by another by morning in the collecting box, there were more pugs, more Bee Moths, and a couple more Brimstone (not to be confused with the Brimstone butterfly). Here’s the full list of the Saturday morning haul; NFY = New for year:

Bee Moth (3), Brimstone (3), Common Pug (4), Cream-bordered Garden Pea (NFY), Argyrotaenia ljungiana (NFY), Eudonia angustea (NFY), Female Muslin, Flame Shoulder (NFY), Freyer’s Pug (NFY), Garden Carpet (2), Grey/Dark Dagger agg (NFY), Heart and Dart (2), Light-brown Apple Moth (2), male Muslin, Notocelia cynosbatella (NFY), Pale Tussock (2, NFY), Rustic Shoulder-knot (NFY, deceased), Shuttle-shaped Dart (12), Waved Umber.

Still hearing from others that they are hardly seeing any moths and yet some people with mercury vapour lures elsewhere in the country are seeing a whole lot more.

Mrs Sciencebase spotted this fellow roosting in the garden last night…it was the moth that was roosting, not Mrs Sb. It’s a Purple Thorn. So-called because the larva (caterpillar), which is stick-like in appearance has a spiky projection and the adult has a purple hue to its wings.

Its scientific name (binomial) is Selenia tetralunaria. It has four white crescent moon shapes on its wings, hence the tetralunaria of its binomial. Selenia is the genus and there are a couple of dozen of this type of moth around the world, a fraction of the 180,000 different known moths (and butterflies, same thing)

Day-flying moths among the tops of the sycamores today

Adela reaumurella, the Green Long-horn Moth, is a species of moth belonging to the family Adelidae. It is a small moth with a wingspan of around 12-15 mm. The forewings are metallic green, the hindwings slightly darker. The most distinctive feature of this moth is the long antennae that can be twice as long as the wingspan. The Green Long-horn Moth is widely distributed throughout Europe and parts of Asia. It can be found in a variety of habitats, including woodlands, heathlands, and grasslands.

The species typically has two generations per year. The first generation emerges in May or June, and the second generation emerges in August or September. The larvae feed on leaf litter.

The species is not considered to be a threatened species. However, like many moth species, it is under-recorded and little is known about its population status. As with many Lepidoptera, it plays an important role in the ecosystem as a pollinator of flowers. It is also a valuable indicator species for monitoring the health of woodland habitats.

I have a pheromone lure to attract the male of the lepidopteral species Saturnia pavonia, also known as the Emperor moth. It’s a beautiful creature. The male flies during the day drawn to the sex attractant exuded by the night-flying and less brightly coloured female. I’ve photographed them on the wing in the garden previously and also on a stage with a macro lens, as regular Sciencebase readers will know.

I only put the lure out for a few moments once a week or so, but it never fails. A couple of males turned up today within 20 minutes of the pheromones being released. One of them ended up in the conservatory, frantically flapping on a curtain for a few moments, so I got some fast shutterspeed (1/4000s) shots of him before giving the curtain a bit of a gentle flick to send him on his way and putting the lure back in the freezer until next week. It’s wonderful to know that these beautiful creatures are going about their lives with no care for our human woes.

The Box-tree Moth, Cydalima perspectalis, is an Asian species of moth (usually seen in Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, and India), that is gradually spreading, presumably with the advent of box hedges on new housing estates, across the South East of England, and in East Anglia.

It would most likely have arrived as eggs/larvae on imported box plants(Buxus), and it was first recorded in the UK in 2007. Its larvae can rapidly eat their way through a box hedge. Another reason to go native when it comes to planting…although it is probably too late for native box now though.

I recorded my first Box-tree moth in July of 2019 and have seen dozens since. It is a quite beautiful, exotic-seeming moth. There is a dark melanistic, form, which is a common genetic aberration in lots of animals; see also the Industrial Evolution of the Peppered Moth.

Wiki has more details on its recordings: first seen in Germany 2006, then Switzerland and The Netherlands in 2007, France and Austria in 2009, Hungary 2011, Romania, Spain, and Turkey. Also now in Slovakia, Belgium, and Croatia, and by 2016 Bosnia and Hercegovina. During the preparation to the 2014 Olympics in 2012 it was introduced from Italy to Sochi with the planting stock of Buxus sempervirens. A year later it was seen to be defoliating Buxus colchica. Now present in Toronto, Canada as of 2019.

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of pheromone traps hanging in trees close to a garden box hedge and even at a National Trust property. These traps are commonly used by moth-ers who place a pheromone lure in the trap, and draw in a target species for recording, examination, and photographing. All in the name of citizen science.

Unfortunately, this is not the way to deal with what box gardeners perceive as a pest. Indeed, hanging a lure in your garden will have the exact opposite effect of what you hoped. The females if they are in your area will be drawn to the box plants because that’s the food plant for their larvae. In the meantime, they will be pumping out sex pheromone into the air and drawing in the males who will mate as soon as they encounter the female. If you put out a pheromone lure, you are likely to be amplifying the sex signal and will draw in more males. You will trap some males but it really only takes one pairing on your box hedge for it to be devastated by box-tree moth larvae.

So, how do you deal with an infestation of Box-tree Moth larvae on your bushes? Well, you could go the nasty route and spray pesticide, but that will harm other beneficial invertebrate species. You could make a solution of washing-up liquid, but that’s unlikely to work well. You could pick off the caterpillar and…dispose of them. But, in this area, at least, I’d say your Box are doomed, perhaps better to find another native plant species to replace it for hedging.

If you see this species, there is a major project to record their spread and changing colour forms through the UK. You can record details here.

UPDATE: One Merv in the night and another to join it by morning!

I only started mothing with a scientific trap a little over a year ago (24 Jul 2018, to be precise) but have logged and photographed well over 300 different species since then.

I heard about Griposia aprilina, aka the Merveille du Jour, a few weeks after I started and thought it would be a nice specimen to see. But, its larvae feed on oaks and as far as I know, there are none particularly close to our garden. I was ever hopeful of seeing this little marvel but I didn’t hold out much hope of it ever making an appearance.

This beautifully marked green (and black and white) moth usually emerges in adult form in early October to fly and mate. This time last year, I hadn’t seen one and even though I lit up all the way through the autumnal and winter moth season up to mid-December or thereabouts, Merv never showed.

After our recent wildlife, yoga, and sightseeing trip to the Greek Island of Kythira, I got back to lighting up only a couple of nights ago. Tonight, I was about to head for bed, but thought I would check the trap for Thorns and Sallows only to be rewarded with the little wonder that is the Merveille du Jour. It’s odd that some British moth-ers tend to call it a “Wonder of the Day” when they translate its obviously French name, using the Germanic “wonder”. Either way, it’s a marvellous and wonderful moth.

I’ve seen Hummingbird Hawk-moths, Macroglossum stellatarum, on a few occasions but previously when travelling abroad (specifically, Croatia (2017), Germany (2018), and Italy (2010), and if memory serves many years ago France, 1996). I’ve only ever got awkward, blurry, and low-resolution photos. Earlier in the summer, a friend gave me some red valerian plants, which are a favourite of this species; same friend who donated the snails for our newly resurrected pond, #pondlife.

That was back in early June. I had high hopes of seeing swarms of this bird-like Lep, which is an immigrant to the UK but occasionally seen in numbers when there’s an irruption. But, it seemed like it wasn’t to be, until this balmy September day (just 17 Celsius in the shade though). Finally, a HBHM has turned up. Initially, I wasn’t quick enough with my camera, but at least I saw it before it headed off over our roof. But, then twenty minutes later it was back, or perhaps it’s a second one. I was ready. Shutterspeed 1/4000th of a second, still not fast enough to freeze the moth’s wings in flight, but at least you get the gist.

The moth mothers often abbreviate as the SHC, the Setaceous Hebrew Character, Xestia c-nigrum, turns up a lot in scientific traps from late summer into the autumn. The name refers to a marking on its forewings that resembles the Hebrew letter, nun, and the setaceous means “bristly” and refers to the hairs around the character. Hence my tongue-in-cheek reference to it being the Bristly Nun. The setaceous separates it from a distant relative but fellow noctuid, the spring-flying Hebrew Character, Orthosia gothica, it has the nun, but is clean-shaven and so lacks those bristles.

The SHC also flies in its first brood from May to June, but the second brood seems to be far more numerous August to September. You can see from my records for 2019 here that I’ve seen hundreds, with a peak in August of well over 100 on a single night. Nothing compared to the numbers of fellow noctuid the bombastic Large Yellow Underwing, Noctua pronuba. Apart from subtle variation in marking definition and some size difference, the SHCs mostly look alike. Again, in contrast to N. pronuba, which can vary considerably in their choice of browns and greys.

Anyway, there were no NFY (new for year) moths in the trap this morning, so I focused on the SHC on a whim and placed a small tribe of those from the haul on to my trusty chunk of mossy and lichen-covered bark for a quick photoshoot and a macro closeup or two.

Large Thorn, Ennomos autumnaria, attracted to the UV lamp of the scientific trap, night of 16th September, didn’t get a chance to enter the trap before I potted it to photograph this NFM*.

The species, like the other geometers we know as Thorns looks like an autumnal leaf, and occasionally quivers when roosting as if to follow the breeze. It’s a relatively large moth, but the “Thorn” of its vernacular name refers to a spike on the larva and is nothing to do with the adult being at all prickly.

Also around the trap at the same time a worn Orange Sallow (worn, but NFM*) and a Centre-barred Sallow, both very autumnal in appearance.

*NFM = New for me