Burying beetles

A Burying Beetle turned up in the moth trap during the summer. At first, I could hear its beating wings, could see its black and yellow warning colours and assumed it was some kind of hornet until it landed and I got a proper look at it with its large club-like antennae.

Burying Beetle – Nicrophorus vespillo

These beetles are attracted to dead vertebrates, birds and rodents, by the volatile and very smelly organosulfur compounds produced by a carcass some time after death. If you’ve ever done any sulfur chemistry you know how unattractive you become after working with such compounds in the lab.

The beetle drags its carcass underground, encases it and sprays it with oral and anal secretions to mask the smell of death to preclude other scavengers finding the stash. The body becomes a food source for the beetle’s larvae once they hatch from the eggs the beetle lays on it.

Unusually among insects, the male and female parents take care of their brood, they even work in communities to bury and protect a large carcass. One amateur naturalist friend of mine says he has seen one such beetle dragging a dead Dunnock underground.

Everyone interested in such insects warns you not to handle them as they smell foul and the smell transfers to your skin.  Apparently, it takes longer to get the stink off your fingers than it does for a wasp sting to subside! Although I wonder whether the vinegar trick for denaturing skunk spray and fox poo odours might work (bathing in tomato ketchup).

It seems that Burying Beetles secrete a chemical brew through their anus from rectal glands. This spray consists of aliphatic acids and terpene alcohols that smell foul. Among the various molecules are methyl or ethyl esters of 4-methylheptanoic acid and 4-methyloctanoic acid which seem to be male pheromones to attract females.

Some comments on the Moth Trap Intruders Facebook Group suggest that not all specimens stink but that if you do wish to examine them it is best to collect them into a glass, rather than a plastic, pot to preclude the smell being absorbed into the plastic from which it will slowly emanate for months to come.

What a wonderful world…

More mothing favourites

A few more mothing favourites from six weeks of trapping. The full collection can be seen with captions in my Lepidoptera gallery on Imaging Storm.

Elephant Hawk-moth (Deilephila elpenor) – Trapped overnight 7 Aug 2018
Scalloped Oak (Crocallis elinguaria) – Morning of 25th July 2018
Poplar Hawk Moth (Laothoe populi) – 24th July 2018, Rob’s trap in Rob’s garden.
It was Mrs Sciencebase spotting this Copper Underwing (Amphipyra pyramidea) in our garden on 23rd July 2018, that motivated me to borrow Rob’s actinic trap and begin my mothing career…
Burnished Brass (Diachrysia chrysitis) – 26th July 2018. Beautiful metallic looking moth. I have a Materials Today comment article about this moth as an inspiration for biomimetic materials science coming online soon.
Buff Ermine (Spilosoma lutea) – 29 July 2018
Blood vein (Timandra comae) – 29 July 2018
Pebble Hook-tip (Drepana falcataria) – 24th July 2018, Rob’s garden

Mothing favourites

It was 24th July that I overcame my squeamishness about moths, it wasn’t so much a phobia, just a bit of a fluttering anxiety. Anyway, having been trapping for a good proportion of the time since, I’ve seen some quite startling diversity, which I don’t feel I even knew existed in the world of lepidoptera. As, I’ve mentioned before, there are about 2500 species of moth in the UK, there are also migrants, abberations and other anomalies.

Here are a few of my favourites so far:

Jersey Tiger (Euplagia quadripunctaria) – Spotted near the trap on the night of 26th July 2018. On the trap, but in it by morning.
Canary-shouldered Thorn (Ennomus alniaria) – 29 July 2018
Feathered Gothic (Tholera decimalis) – Very bronzed and glamorous moth turned up night of 2 Sep 2018, popped it in the trap to photograph again in the morning.
Purple Thorn (Selenia tetralunaria) Second generation female – In the trap, morning of 2 Sep 2018. At first, I thought it was the Angle Shades somehow rolled up on itself until I put my specs on and could see him (it’s a male) properly.
Angle Shades (Phlogophora meticulosa) – Was near trap night of 1 Sep 2018, I nudged in, still there in the morning to photograph on this lichen-covered stick.
Small Blood-vein (Scopula imitaria) – Morning of 31 Aug 2018. Very few specimens in the trap this morning, but I thought this was just a small Blood Vein, it’s not it’s a Small Blood-vein, new to me.
Light Emerald (Campaea margaritaria) – Morning 28 August 2018. Geometridae » Ennominae
Orange Swift (Triodia sylvina) – A first 13th August 2018. Brightly coloured specimen so, a male, the female is a lot paler. Member of the Hepialidae of which there are only five members in the UK.

The full collection can be seen with captions in my Lepidoptera gallery on Imaging Storm.

Female Feathered Gothic moth

My mate Brian Stone suggested that getting into moths was like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole…it certainly feels that way with around 2500 species in the UK alone any one of which might turn up in a trap or be flitting around the garden day or night. Compare that number to the 50 or so species of butterfly we have here (strictly speaking butterflies are just a sub-group of moths anyway).

Copper Underwing

Down that rabbit hole, there are owlets, geometers, hawks and sphinxes, micros, and countless other classifications. Some of the families contain hundreds of species some just contain a single member. Check out the UK Moths website for a near-definitive gallery. Me? I’ve just passed photographing and identifying about 80 different moths.

There are also the obviously and not so obviously sexually dimorphic species (male and female look very different), the aberrations (moths that have strayed from the normal plan of shape and size, but usually just pattern), the second and third brood specimens for those moths that breed several times in the season. And, let’s not forget the Large Yellow Underwings, the Broad-bordered Yellow Underwings, the Lesser Yellow Underwings, and the Small Yellow Underwings (add to that the Copper UWs, the Red UWs, the Clifden Nonpareil (Blue Underwing), the Straw Underwing, and the Old Lady (which looks to my eye like a grey underwing)!

Second-generation, female Purple Thorn

Earlier in the week, I saw a female, second generation Purple Thorn, which looks very different from the standard Purple Thorn, but luckily was pictured in my Collins Complete Guide to British Butterflies and Moths. And, last night there was a “Gothic”, but it wasn’t the bog standard Gothic owlet (noctuid), it was a Feathered Gothic, and so different and it was a female, so different again. Fortunately, she was still there this morning for her early-morning photo shoot.

Female Feathered Gothic (Tholera decimalis)

So, this one is Feathered, as opposed to just plain Gotchic, Beautiful Gothic, or Bordered Gothic. The male has feathered antennae (a common feature of the sexual dimorphism of moths as the feathered antennae evolved to detect tiny amounts of sex pheromone molecules released by the females). Otherwise the male and female look very similar in this species.

Sunlit sideview female Feathered Gothic (Tholera decimalis)

The adults fly August to September, this was my first sighting of one, 2nd September. They spend their time mostly in grasslands and the larvae (caterpillars) feed on grasses.

Sunlight eyeview, female Feathered Gothic (Tholera decimalis)

A piece of poo moth

TL:DR – A few photos and a brief discussion of the Chinese Character moth


Chinese Character moth

Chinese Character moth

Chinese Character moth

Regular Sciencebase readers will, by now, have realised that moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera, meaning scaly wings) have become a focus of my macro photography in recent weeks. Indeed, I’ve photographed and identified about 80 different species of lepidoptera, mainly in our back garden over the last month or so (23 July onwards, with a week off in August and a few missing days to give the moths a rest from overnight actinic light-trapping).

Chinese Character moth

Anyway, you will also have realised that many moths have some rather outlandish and intriguing common names: Elephant Hawk-moth, Angle Shades, Dark Arches, Yellow Shell, Canary-shouldered Thorn, Setaceous Hebrew Character to name a few that I’ve photographed over the last month or so. I hadn’t seen the species known as the Chinese Character (Cilix glaucata) despite it being relatively common and flying at night at this time of year. It is found in Europe, Asia Minor, and North Africa.

Its common name you might imagine alludes to some feature of its patterning. The moth has what might be described as China-white wings, which are flecked with a series of small grey spots along the outer edge of the fore-wings. The inner edge has a dark brown “stain” that has areas of yellow and grey towards the middle of the wing. Nothing would suggest Chinese character, other than the porcelain colour of the wings, perhaps. Although a closer inspection and a whistful perception does reveal that the edge of the blotches resemble brush-and-ink markings that one might see in traditional Chinese script (apparently).

Chinese Character moth

However, that colouration and patterning do serve a purpose. When the moth is at rest, with its curvy wings in a tent-like configuration it resembles nothing less honourable than a dollop of avian guano. It looks like bird poo, in other words! This is a highly evolved state, most predators will avert their taste buds and mouths when confronted with something that looks like poop.

The etymology of the word Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera are the insects with scaly wings – the moths and butterflies, in other words. 160,000 species of moth worldwide, 20,000 butterflies. 2500 of the moths in the UK and a mere 52 butterfly species. Incidentally, the only truly distinguishing feature between moths and butterflies being that butterflies have club-like antennae and the majority of moths don’t.

Anyway, lepidoptera from the Greek “lepis” meaning scale” and “pteron” meaning wing (or feather). As in the flaky mica mineral lepidolite and the prehistoric winged reptiles, the pterosaurs.

So, anyway, here are some lepidoptera

 

You can see more of my lepidoptera photographs on my Imaging Storm website.

Lakenheath Revisited

We visited RSPB Lakenheath for the first time back in snowy February. They were just setting up a photography hide with naturalistic perches and feeders and a reed bed for Bunts, Tits, Kingfishers, and the like. In fact, first shot I got there was of a beautiful Kingfisher who popped in stared at the camera and disappeared within the space of about ten seconds. This visit, we had numerous Tits (Great, Blue, and Marsh), Reed Bunts, Goldfinches, and a few others, and a male Great Spotted Woodpecker, but did no spotted Kingfisher at this site this time.

Below Little Egret (Egretta garzetta) fishing

Great Tits (Parus major) feeding

Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) bunting

Juvenile Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) just starting its facepainting

There were plenty of caterpillars of Aglais io, the European Peacock, writhing on a nettle patch near New Fen Hide at RSPB Lakenheath. They are late, as this species usually lays eggs in June from which caterpillars soon emerge. Despite their defensive spines, many of them are eaten by parasitic wasps.

Meanwhile, we also saw all three of the site’s celebrity spiders: Wasp Spider, Crowend Orb Weaver, Marbled Orb Weaver. More about those in this post. But missed the Common Heath butterfly (plenty of Small and Large Whites, and one Comma).

The Toadflax (Butter and Eggs plant, Linaria vulgaris) was dying off but there were a few flowers still in bloom

There were countless airborne dragonflies and quite surprising not to see the local Hobbies (Falco subbuteo) chasing and eating this fast food supply, especially those distracted by their mating rituals.

More snaps from today’s trip to RSPB Lakenheath here.

Arachnodetour

A slight detour from the mothematics and the feathered aviators. If you’re an arachnophobe now is the time to look away or if you’re trying aversion therapy, start staring at the screen and scrolling now!

The first three photos are of a Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi) which had spun its orb web on the edge of the footpath leading from the Visitors’ Centre to the Photography Station:

The two archno photos below are of a Cross Spider, or more formally a Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus). In the lower of the two one spider is about to drag the more prominent one up and under the nettle leaves (not entirely sure whether the lower one was dead at this point):

The final spider of the day is a male Marbled Orb Weaver (Araneus marmoreus). The abdomen of the female resembles a swollen orange pumpkin giving the species its other common name of the Pumpkin Spider.

Iron Prominent – Notodonta dromedarius

The Iron Prominent (Notodonta dromedarius) is fairly common across Great Britain, turned up in the trap a couple of times in the second week of August. Got better photos of the specimen on the morning of 13th where it sat on the back of my hand after jumping from its overnight resting place on a cardboard egg carton in the trap. It walked a little and then quickly fired up its wings to high-speed before flying off.

Two broods fly each year May-June and then again in August. Except in the North where they brood only once June-July, according to UKMoths. The humps on the green caterpillar’s back give rise to the second part of the scientific name. But, it’s the protruding tuft of hair on the trailing edge of the forewing in many species of the Notodonta moths that gives them the “prominent” of their common names. Although there are only four Notodontids in the UK, there are 3,800 known species in this family around the world, mostly in The Tropics.