TL:DR – An update on my butterflying efforts in 2023.
Regular readers will know I’ve been making a concerted effort to see more species of butterfly during the last couple of summers. Obviously, most people will have seen the relatively common ones – Brown Argus, Comma, Common Blue, Green-veined White, Large White, Orange Tip, Painted Lady, Peacock, Red Admiral, Small Copper, Small Tortoiseshell, Small White.
But, there are many more including various fritillaries, hairstreaks, other types of blue, other types of white that are not seen so frequently. They have limited ranges and sites, nectar and lay eggs only in particular environments, and are generally not seen in gardens or on general walks in the countryside, unless you’re very lucky.
European Peacock, Aglais io
So, here’s a list of the species I’ve been targeting over the last couple of years, some I’m yet to see, others I have “ticked” as it were:
*Ones I have not seen nor photographed in the UK. Although I have seen Swallowtail larva.
Clouded Yellow, Colias croceus
I’ve put together a spreadsheet so I can see the where and when and am sharing a portion of that here for you. It’s centred on Cambridge, but spills over into neighbouring counties where there are species that don’t yet appear in this county. I add the best photos I get of the various species to the butterfly gallery on my Imaging Storm website.
TL:DR – Lepidoptera with fake eyes, ocelli, an example of convergent evolution?
The European Peacock (Aglais io) has four “eyes”, known as ocellus, singular ocellus) on its wings just like the Emperor (Saturnia pavonia), it’s a nice example of pareidolia and of convergent evolution.
Peacock Butterfly
Butterflies, of course, are just one branch on the moth family tree, we make a distinction in English because of our language and not much else. All the characteristics that are meant to set moths and butterflies apart are found in each, lots of day-flying moths, several with clubbed antennae, loads that are brightly coloured and patterned, some with thin bodies, some with thick, many that close their wings together above their bodies.
Male Emperor Moth
There is one difference…butterflies cannot unhook their forewings from their hindwings, moths have a hook called a frenulum that allows them to disconnect forewings from hindwings. That is the only physical difference between moths and butterflies. There is one exception to the rule the Regent Skipper butterfly, Euschemon rafflesia, of Australia, which has this frenulum hook.
Actually, there is another difference but this is not about the adults…the larvae of moths can sometimes spin a silk cocoon to protect them when they become a pupa. Butterflies don’t make silk for their pupa (chrysalis).
Funnily enough, butterflies are a grouping of micro moths. The term micro as opposed to macro, doesn’t relate to their size as some micros are far bigger than macros. The distinction is about evolutionary position on the lepidopteral family tree. It’s worth noting that new genetics research can change established taxonomical positions on a whim when close relatives are sometimes found or lost.
TL:DR – How to fall in love with moths and mothing.
Regular Sciencebase readers will know only too well that back in July 2018 I got hooked on moths. An enthusiastic friend lent me a moth trap he had built himself for his children many years ago. The trap is basically a wooden box with a plastic funnel and an ultraviolet light supported by stiff plastic vanes).
Moth trap
The UV light attracts the night-flying creatures, some of them bump into the vanes, drop into the funnel and then find a cozy corner in one of the empty egg cartons put inside the box before “lighting up”. The amateur, or indeed professional, lepidopterist examines the catch at dawn, recording species and species number and later releasing the moths off-site back into undergrowth or bushes.
It’s fascinating and fun and at the time of writing almost five years since I first “lit up”, I have seen, photographed, and logged well over 450 different species of moth in my Cambridgeshire garden. The variety and diversity of shape, size, colouration, and patterning is incredible. I must admit that I had always been a little irrationally wary of moths despite the fact that they are completely harmless. After all, unlike many other types of insect, they don’t bite and they don’t sting.
Poplar Hawk-moth on Rob’s hand on that fateful day in 2018
It was a test run with my moth-trap maker friend, Rob, who had stopped trapping moth and turned his hand to making guitars, that got me hooked. He lit up one July evening and invited me to the grand opening the next morning. There must have been 100 or more moths in the trap, a few that were simply dull and grey or brown, but among them some huge hawk-moths, some shiny green moths, orange ones, red ones, patterned ones, ones with daggers and arches, all kinds.
Having got a little up close and personal with the Poplar Hawk-moth in Rob’s trap, allowing it to perch on my hand while I took a close look, this single dose of informal aversion therapy, seemed to cure my mild phobia about moths, my mottephobia. I had previously photographed one or two moths that turned up in the house, but essentially I made 180-degree about turn from aversion to addiction. I borrowed Rob’s trap from him permanently as summer turned to autumn, and paid him an honorarium for the privilege.
Convolvulus Hawk-moth
I have trapped regularly in all that time since. I’ve also acquired various other UV sources including a LepiLED. The low-wattage LepiLED runs off a USB battery pack and is entirely portable, so I have taken it on a few excursions with an adapted, portable Heath trap I bought off another ex-mothing friend. My pots for managing the morning moths came from yet another ex-mother friend!
Hummingbird Hawk-moth
I have also bought pheromone lures to attract various species, including Emperor and some of the clearwing moths. I have planted wildflowers and various scented flowers in the garden to attract species like Hummingbird Hawk-moth and Convolvulus Hawk-moth. A recent addition to my mothing measures was to buy a bottle of amyl acetate (used in aromatherapy apparently despite it being toxic). It has a strong fruity smell and is entirely harmless to moths but attracts various species.
Is it a kind of madness, this mothematical obsession? Maybe. Am I happy to be part of #TeamMoth and to regularly declare that #MothsMatter? Too right! I have written about the ethics and importance of moth-trapping as a citizen science effort and I have also written about why moths really do matter. Would I recommend it as a hobby or citizen science project? By my scaly wings, I would, of course!
A moth known as a Clouded Yellow butterfly
Incidentally, butterflies are just one grouping within the Lepidoptera, just like the less publicly familiar groupings, the noctuids, hawk-moths, erebids and others. Indeed, butterflies are grouping within the broader clade we know as the micro moths (an unfortunate term that doesn’t always reflect their size but is rather connected to their evolutionary ancestry). The other major clade is the macro moths, but there are some micros that are bigger than even the biggest macros.
Male Emperor moth
The tragedy is that their numbers and diversity have declined considerably since my childhood in the 1960s and 70s. Perhaps even in the last five years since I started mothing. First full year, I would see a couple of hundred moths of 70 or so species, but in the last couple of years those numbers have been much lower even on peak summer nights.
TL:DR – It was learning some of the common names for the macro moths that helped piqued my interest in being an amateur lepidopterist and citizen science moth-er.
There are around 1800 moth species seen in the UK. A large proportion of these are the so-called micro moths (which isn’t about size, but rather their position in evolutionary history) and they are usually referred to by their scientific name rather than a common name although some do have colloquial names too. But, almost all of the macro moths have an intriguing common name. Here are some of my favourites
The Clifden Nonpareil (Catocala fraxini) – This large moth is known for its striking appearance, with its black and white wings and a powder blue band across its hindwings. Its name, “Nonpareil,” means “unrivaled” in French and the Clifden, is the archaic spelling of Cliveden, as in Cliveden House the site where it was recorded scientifically in the early days of formal entomology.
Clifden Nonpareil
The Buff-tip (Phalera bucephala) – At rest, this moth look like a piece of broken silver birch twig. The Buff-tip of its common name refers to the colour of the ends of its forewings.
Buff-tip
The Merveille du Jour (Griposia aprilina) – This moth’s name comes from French, meaning marvel of the day. It’s a stunning green moth with intricate black patterning on its wings, it blends in well with lichen-covered surfaces.
Merveille du Jour
The Coxcomb Prominent (Ptilodon capucina) – When at rest this otherwise brown and relatively innocuous moth has a profile shape resembling the a cockerel’s comb. The colouration and shape make it otherwise resemble a curling autumnal leaf.
Coxcomb Prominent
The Herald (Scoliopteryx libatrix) – This moth is known for its stately orange orange wings, when at rest it looks like a shield or perhaps the penant that might hang from a horn player’s instrument at a ceremony.
The Herald
The Old Lady (Mormo maura) – The Old Lady is named for its resemblance to black or dark-brown silk commonly worn during mourning by widows of the late 18th Century when the species was named. It is sometimes known as the Black Underwing or the Grave Brocade, although both those archaic names are frowned upon.
The Old Lady
The Vapourer (Orgyia antiqua) – This moth, occasionally known as the Rusty Tussock, is as that latter name would suggest largely brown, although the males have a white spot on each forewing which gives something of the appearance of eyes staring back at wouldbe predators. It is known as The Vapourer because the wingless and so flightless females exude pheromones, producing a vapour trail to attract the day-flying males.
The Vapourer
The Shark (Cucullia umbratica) – This fairly large moth gets its common name from its grey and sleek appearance when at rest and its thoracic crest adds to the allusion of a shark-like shape.
The Shark
The Ruby Tiger (Phragmatobia fuliginosa) – This moth is known for its striking appearance, with its bright red colour and furry body. It bears little resemblance to the other “tiger” moths, which have a more butterfly-like appearance, although only the Jersey Tiger as stripes, the others are spotty.
Ruby Tiger
The Nutmeg (Anarta trifolii) – This moth is named after its speckly grey appearance, which must have reminded the early entomologists of the spice, perhaps the face of a piece of nutmeg after grating.
The Nutmeg
I reviewed Peter Marren’s excellent book about the names of the Lepidoptera, Emperors, Admirals, and Chimney Sweepers, on Sciencebase some time ago. I still refer to it on an almost daily basis during the peak mothing season.
TL:DR – Recent research has demonstrated that adding the volatile organic compound amyl acetate to a scientific moth-trap can boost the number of moths attracted to the UV light by almost a third.
A social media discussion about UV light sources for scientific moth-trapping, the type of vanes on the trap, and the environment in which one traps brought up some interesting thoughts. Several moth-ers use double sources to give them a better chance of enticing numbers and diversity to their traps. Although moths have been shown almost always to simply opt for the most energetic (higher frequency, shorter wavelength) when given a choice. There is evidence that black lights (UV bulbs painted black) are not so effective for attracting those species that are drawn more to visible light.
December Moth
Also, it seems that white plastic vanes seem to work better than other types of vane and certainly better than rain-shield supporting rods on the commonly used Robinson and Heath moth traps. It also seems that the specific terrain and vegetation can affect numbers and diversity in some ways more than light source or other factors. There was also some recent work on how low-wattage UV light sources have a very limited range of attraction, but also the range varies among macro moth families, some attracted from 30 metres others from just 10 metres.
Merveille du Jour
Anyway, in the discussion, fellow moth-er Stephen Roughley mentioned a paper by Chris Tyler-Smith and Yali Xue in the journal Ent Rec, “Amyl acetate increases macromoth catches in light traps” 2021, 134(6), 315-321, that looked at how lepidopterists might boost their haul for scientific and citizen scientific purposes. They suggest the use of a simple organic molecule that smells of fruit, called amyl acetate, amyl is an alternative name for the five-carbon alkyl chemical group pentyl, to augment one’s trapping. They demonstrated that amyl acetate boosted the number of macro moths drawn to the UV trap by up to about a third. Strictly speaking, the product contains 3-methylbutyl acetate, so five-carbon group but not in a straight chain.
The ester amyl acetate smells fruity
The molecule, sometimes known as pear oil, is used as a flavouring agent, as a paint solvent, and in the preparation of penicillin. It is also the fuel for Hefner lamps. But, it is also found naturally in the volatile organic compounds exuded by ripe pears and presumably other fruit and fermenting or decaying vegetable matter.
I asked author Xue about the work. “We only tried amyl acetate from Etsy, but suspect that moths would not care about the grade, and any that smells like pear drops to a human would be fine, they told me. “We used enough to moisten a cotton wool pad and placed this beside the trap in a metal bowl as the solvent dissolves plastics.”
Beaded Chestnut
Many species of moths are known to be attracted to the odours given off by ripe fruits and flowers. There is a suggestion that some female moths may well be particularly attracted to such odours, including amyl acetate, as they seek out ripe fruit in which to lay their eggs. Indeed, it’s worth noting that a lot of moths that are not necessarily interested in light can be drawn to a strong-smelling sugary solution made from molasses boiled with beer or wine and various other concoctions. Most moths use their olfactory senses to locate food, mates, and suitable habitats, so this is perhaps not surprising. It was the technique of sugaring to attract moths that inspired the team. (See also wine roping). Amyl acetate mimics fruit odours and so should attract moths. Indeed it has been used in the past as a sugaring ingredient.
Black Rustic
The team suggest, however, that the chemical simply applied could substitute for sugaring concoctions and might boost moth trapping where scented flowers are not present at a site. It all adds to the useful data that might be gathered to feed back to moth recorders for scientific purposes and to show where and when various species appear around the country. I have previously discussed the pros and cons of moth-trapping on Sciencebase.
TL:DR – A few examples of plants and animals that use disguises.
Lots of animals and even plants have evolved to have a visual resemblance to other organisms. The flowers of the Bee Orchid as the name would suggest look like female bees and as such attract roving male bees who alight on the “female” hoping that they’ve found a mate. In so doing, they inadvertently pick up pollen from the male part of the flower and this is transferred to female parts of the next “mate”, thus pollinating the plants.
Bee Orchid complete with fur and pollen sacks
There is a bird that has evolved to look like a snake and so ward off predators. Indeed, not only does it look like a snake when it postures defensively, but it writhes around so that its head really does look like a snake about to pounce.
Snake-like Wryneck
Among the lepidoptera, the moths and butterflies, there are so many disguises it is hard to know where to start. The Bufftip moth resembles a piece of snapped of birch twig while the unrelated Buff Arches resembles a piece of flint on a stony woodland floor.
Buff-tip moth and twigBuff Arches moth resembles a chunk of flint
There are so many examples of this faking it camouflage among the Lepidoptera. Perhaps the most obvious examples of this pareidolia are among the species that have “eyes” (ocelli, singular ocellus) on their wings. The European Peacock, for example, roosts with wings closed. The dark undersides are sufficient disguise in the dingy nook of a tree during hibernation but if disturbed it flashes its eyes, which to a bird or other predator look shockingly like a big face staring back, the face of an animal that might fight back rather than a gentle butterfly.
Dark undersides of Peacock butterfly wingsFour eyes of the European Peacock
The Emperor moth also has four eyes but does not have the advantage of being able to fold its wings flat against each other. When disturbed or agitated it opens out its wings to reveal four scary eyes staring back at a predator.
Emperor moth showing its four eyesThe staring “face” of an Emperor moth at rest
However, even at rest with its forewings covering its hindwings the Emperor is always watchful. Indeed, if one imagines a predator flying into to check out tasty morsels on the heather, it will be shocked to see something resembling a predator staring back at it!
TL:DR – Reasons to be a citizen scientist lepidopterist.
I’ve been mothing since July 2018. By which I mean I have used a lure (an ultraviolet light source) and a trap to allow me to monitor, count, photograph, and release the moths that pass through my garden at night. It has apparently become a popular hobby, particularly among wildlife enthusiasts during the time when we were all in covid lockdown and had limited opportunity to be out and about exploring nature in situ, birdwatching, gulling, seeking out wildflowers, etc.
Convolvulus Hawk-moth, a rare migrant to the UK that sometimes breeds in Spring, but is generally unable to overwinter here.
There is an argument that mothing might be detrimental to the already heavily threatened populations of moths, but I think the benefits in terms of scientific insight and education far outweigh the negligible impact on moth populations.
The stunning Clifden Nonpareil was once relatively common in the UK but disappeared. It is seeing a renaissance and spreading northwards
Moth trapping and recording is a valuable citizen science activity that allows non-scientists to contribute to scientific research and conservation efforts. The overall scale of scientific moth trapping on reserves and at research centres is far greater than amateur garden mothing.
Moths play important roles in ecosystems as pollinators, food sources for other animals, and indicators of environmental health and so understanding their behaviour and distribution can help in deciding on conservation initiatives.
Moths are often overlooked compared to butterflies (which are actually just a grouping within the Lepidoptera like any grouping of moths), but there are around 160,000 species of moths worldwide (2500 in the UK), making them an incredibly diverse and fascinating group of insects. The more we know about such diversity, the better.
Moths are also important bioindicators, as they can be used to monitor changes in habitat quality and climate.
Moth trapping and recording can help identify new species, expand knowledge of distribution and range, and range extension and reduction, as well as migration, and provide important data for conservation efforts.
Moths are often nocturnal and elusive, making them difficult to study through traditional observation methods. Moth trapping provides an opportunity to observe and study these insects in greater detail.
Moth trapping can also provide a unique opportunity to engage with the natural world and inspire curiosity and interest in science and conservation in young and old alike.
Moth trapping can be done in a non-invasive and ethical manner, with moths typically released unharmed after being recorded and identified.
Moth trapping can provide valuable data on population trends and species diversity, which can help inform conservation decisions and management strategies.
Moth trapping is a relatively low-cost and accessible activity that can be done by people of all ages and backgrounds in their own gardens or even from the balcony of a tower block, making it an ideal way to engage a wide range of people in science and conservation. Lots of nature reserves running mothing events open to the public
TL:DR – Many species of moth are important nocturnal pollinators.
2018 was the year I took a serious interest in studying moths in my garden having been loaned a scientific mothtrap by a friend in the village. It was late July that year that I fell in love with the “nocturnal” Lepidoptera.
December Moth
By the September, I’d recorded about 120 species of animal I’d never noticed, seen, nor observed ever before. In subsequent years I added yet more species. There are about 1600 moth species in the UK and I have ticked 464 (as of 1 April 2023). That same month there was some research demonstrating once again why moths matter and why we should not dismiss these remarkable creatures. The paper:
Construction, validation, and application of nocturnal pollen transport networks in an agro-ecosystem: a comparison using light microscopy and DNA metabarcoding
Callum J. Macgregor, James J. N. Kitson, Richard Fox, Christoph Hahn, David H. Lunt, Michael J. O. Pocock, Darren M. Evans First published: 17 September 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/een.12674
The study compared two methods, light microscopy and DNA metabarcoding, for constructing pollen-transport networks of nocturnal moths, with a focus on their feeding mouthparts. The researchers found that DNA metabarcoding detected more pollen on individual moths and more interactions per moth species compared to microscopy.
Merveille du Jour
The results also showed that the pollen-transport network metrics differed between the two methods due to their varying abilities to detect multiple pollen types per moth and to separate morphologically similar or related pollen. The team also demonstrated some unexpected moth-plant interactions using metabarcoding, revealing new insights into nocturnal pollination systems.
Beaded Chestnut
The authors suggest that while the two methods revealed similar yet distinct networks, the potential applications of metabarcoding for studying plant-pollinator interaction networks, especially for understudied pollinators like moths, are encouraging.
TL:DR – It’s spring and at least one hibernating moth, the Red-green Carpet, has arrived in our garden so far this year
Lit up with my Heath trap again last night and despite the rain, but perhaps because it didn’t drop below 9 Celsius there was a small clutch of moths to ID and record this morning. Specifically, 2x Clouded Drab (new for the year), Common Quaker, Early Grey, 2x Hebrew Character, and a Red-green Carpet, also NFY.
Red-green Carpet, Chloroclysta siterata
The Red-green Carpet is usually on the wing in the Autumn, the males die, but the females can hibernate to lay eggs in the spring. To my eye, they generally look green with some spots and patches at this time of year, but the autumnal ones are more obviously green and red…ish.
The “carpet” part of its name refers not to the notion that its larvae eat carpets, rather than in the 1700s when species were first being classified and named, the early entomologists and indeed the Lepidopterists perceived the beauty of these creatures and equated their colourful patterns and markings as being like the luxury items carpets were at the time.
The Red-green Carpet moth is a beautiful and fascinating species of moth that belongs to the family Geometridae, which includes many other species commonly known as “carpet moths”. This moth is found throughout Europe, including the United Kingdom, where it is one of the most common species of carpet moth.
Like all Lepidoptera, the species undergoes a complete metamorphosis, with four distinct life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The eggs are laid on the leaves of the host plant, which can include a wide variety of deciduous trees, most commonly oak and rowan. The larvae, which are often called “inchworms” (US usage) because of their distinctive way of moving, measuring the earth…hence geometers undergo several moults before pupating. The pupa is a non-feeding, transformative stage in which the larva transforms into the adult moth. Finally, the adult emerges from the pupa and begins the cycle anew by finding a mate and the females laying eggs.
TL:DR – Pheromones are a useful tool for discovering what day-flying moths are in your neighbourhood.
As regular readers know, I do a bit of mothing…I have had a FUN lure, a pheromone lure aimed at attracting Grapholita funebrana. It’s been sighted in the garden for a couple of weeks with nothing appearing until 21st March 2023 at which point I was lucky enough to catch a couple of micro moths, Pammene giganteana (known to some unofficially as the Early Oak Piercer) not the target species but nice to see, nevertheless.
The micro moth Pammene giganteana (Early Oak Piercer)
The larvae of the Early Oak Piercer feed inside oak-apple galls, which are themselves formed by parasitic wasps.
According to Anglian Lepidopterist Supplies from whom I bought this and other pheromone lures, the FUN lure has a long list of non-target species that might be drawn to it at different times of year, there may be others yet to be reported:
A simple pheromone moth trap. The lure is held in a receptacle above an funnelled opening, a moth attracted to the lure will commonly fall into the funnel and be unable to escape, ready for identification, logging, and release back into the wild unharmed.
