Category: Science

In case you hadn’t noticed, Sciencebase is now moth central, at least for the time being. I’ve been using a scientific trap with a 40W actinic UV light for almost a year now. Have identified (often with help) and photographed almost 250 different species of moth. That’s a mere 10 per cent of the number of species seen in the British Isles. Some rarities have been seen beyond the trappings of our back garden too, including the Brassy Long-horn, logged with the County Recorder and back in the trap, Light Feathered Rustic.

Anyway, this morning’s haul was quite vast. Biggest count ever – 200+ moths of 50+ species (not counting a few stray micro moths). I managed to ID all but one of them. The spare one isn’t in my Collins guide to Lepidoptera. It’s a micro moth known as a Meal Moth, Meal Moth (Pyralis farinalis).

The Meal Moth is not normally interested in lights and usually spends its time in buildings (what it did before buildings I don’t know…caves…woodland hollows, presumably). Its larvae eat stored grain, so the kinds of buildings it prefers are grain stores and barns. Now, we’re not too far from farmland and some of the local crops are wheat and barley, but there are no grain stores close to us. It might be that this species, rather than being a dingy building dweller is something of a scarce migrant. Neil Croton on one of the mothing Facebook groups ID’ed it for me and told me he’d had the same species last night too:

It's a lovely-looking moth, deserves to be a rare migrant rather than an overlooked moth of old farm buildings

I sent a record to Bill Mansfield the County Moth Recorder for Cambridgeshire (VC29). He told me that the Meal Moth turns up consistently and he had noted a recent mention on social media for Cambridgeshire.

UPDATE: June 2021 – I have recently negotiated with the UK Environment Agency to reschedule the mowing of the Lode banks on which this moth has been thriving these last two or three years – Saving Lode Life.

A gentle tale of heavy metal insects…a summer walk along the flood-bank of Cottenham Lode, usually with a camera, often turns up an interesting bird or two, Reed Warblers, Skylarks, Reed and Corn Buntings, and their cousins the Yellowhammers. There are often Linnets and various raptors and herons.

Earlier this week, I was chasing butterflies – Meadow Brown, Skipper, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, etc. A rather mundane and almost throwaway snapshot of a Green-veined White perched on the Field Scabious on the bank of the dog-leg in the lode where it deviates towards Rampton Bridge turned up something interesting. I thought I’d spotted a hoverfly, but when I looked at the photo closeup, it turned out to be a moth with very long antennae.

I tweeted the photo @MothIDUK who could only pin it down to one of various Nemophora species. It wasn’t his fault, the overblown reflections of the moth’s forewings hid any detail. However, Ian Ellis, a fellow moth-er in Cottenham, saw my tweet and went to the Lode himself to check out this day-flying moth. He saw eight longhorns and reckons the one in my photo is Nemophora metallica. A great moth name for heavy metal fans, one has to admit.

I took another trip to the dog-leg in the Lode and photographed the species again, this time deliberately and with a tripod so I could get some fairly sharp photos where I was homing in on the moth rather than random butterflies. Amazing creature, the male’s antennae are about three times the length of its body, although its body is just 8 or 9 millimetres long, but…still!

In my photos, the moth is feeding on its target plant, the field scabious, Knautia arvensis. They’re known in East Anglia, but relatively rare and this could be a useful record for Cambridgeshire, VC29.

Any moth-er will tell you, a lot of moths are shit…that’s not to say they don’t like them, rather lots of moths have evolved to resemble bird droppings. Among those that have camouflaged themselves as guano are the wondrous Chinese Character, the Lime-speck Pug, the Least Carpet and the Garden Carpet, and several others. They are unaware of their superficial resemblance to a dollop of tacky avian ordure. Anyway, it’s what’s on the inside that matters and moths have feelings too…sort of.

Other moths have a grander perspective on camouflage, Buff Arches, as previously mentioned looks like a chunk of knapped flint and so can hide among the stones on the woodland floor with predators unaware of its presence.

But, today I want to talk about a sticky moth. I don’t mean the species has adhesive qualities, although if you let it walk on to your finger you can feel it clinging on to your skin. No, the moth we know as the Buff-tip looks like a piece of broken twig. A twig from a birch tree to be precise. Unfortunately, the best twig I found was from our wisteria, so he had to make do. In my first photo, it is difficult to see where moth and twig begin and end. Is that twiglet the alpha to the moth’s omega or its yang to its yin? You decide.

In this photo, the moth was still clinging to its twig, almost for dear life, and in my photo it’s more obvious which is which, but…are you sure, you’re seeing it the right way?

As the summer moves on, so the diversity and numbers of moths (Lepidoptera) active each night grows. We’re coming to the end of the first week of July and already one night’s haul has passed 200 specimens of 40 different species, logged, identified, and the interesting and ones new to the garden photographed.

160+ moths of more than 30 species were drawn to the actinic light of the scientific moth trap on the night of 5th July. I had heard and possibly seen an Old Lady (Mormo maura) in the garden a few nights ago, but this morning she was nestled in one of the egg trays in the trap awaiting her photocall. This species is large (30mm along the edge of the forewing). Far bigger than the many micros that I didn’t log in detail. You can see the morning logs for the leps here.

The Old Lady, also known as a Black Underwing, and in an earlier time, the Grave Brocade, was accompanied by two Privet Hawk-moths (the UK’s largest species of moth) and a single Elephant Hawk-moth both of which I’ve photographed and written about here previously. The Old Lady is not commonly drawn to light according to the UK Moths site, although my Collins lep guide says they will often come indoors attracted by the light. Regardless, this one definitely was drawn to the light and settled in for the night. It had a chunk missing from its left forewing, so I did a little ‘shopping to tidy her up.

Why is this noctuid, or owlet, moth, called Old Lady, you are probably asking? Well, the sombre answer is that the dark and funereal colours of this moth reminded those who named it of the penchant of elderly widows of Europe for wearing black. This was long before the Victorian era though.

The delicate patterning of the moth’s wings, according to Peter Marren in his book of moth names, Emperors, Admirals, and Chimney Sweepers, resembles that kind of black lace. Intriguingly, adds Marren, the scientific name – Mormo maura – The first part of the name is the name of a hideous she-monster used by Greek parents, apparently, to encourage errant children to behave. “Mormo will come and bite you, if you don’t behave! The second part of the name alludes to the Moors. In Holland, the Old Lady, Marren tells us, becomes a black orphan – Zwart weeskind.

UPDATE: The huge numbers of very worn, migrant Painted Lady butterflies that we and many other people saw at the end of June and into July. It was an irruption and is a good indicator of a coming long, hot summer.

Apparently, this species which migrates into Europe from North Africa never gets its weather forecast wrong. They only turn up in such large numbers here when the weather is going to be good. Their larvae feed mainly on thistles, including the notorious creeping thistle, the bane of the allotmenteer with a bad back. #AllotmentLife.

The second generation will hatch from eggs laid on those thistles and will be much more richly coloured than their migrant parents who lose so many of their wing scales on their journey to these shores.

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However, we need to talk about Vanessa. Vanessa cardui is the Painted Lady in Cynthia’s group. No, not the backing singer in an all-girl 1960s Northern soul outfit, she’s a butterfly. On our hike from the campsite in Stiffkey to the pine-backed beach huts at Wells, a ~16km round trip along the coastal footpath, we saw dozens of V cardui and very few other butterfly species. There were a few Small Tortoiseshell and lots of Meadow Brown, and the occasional Speckled Wood.

I don’t recall ever seeing so many Painted Ladies at one time. They migrate to Britain and Europe from North African and the Mediterranean region in Spring. For whatever reason, there seems that a large number has arrived on these shores.

On the return journey from Wells, as dusk ultimately fell we also saw plenty of grass moths of different species and dozens of feeding and pollinating wildflowers Silver Y (Autographa gamma) and one Yellow Shell (Camptogramma bilineata), and a Cinnabar (Tyria jacobaeae).

 

The Lepidoptera, the scaly-winged insects we know as moths and butterflies, have become something of a citizen science preoccupation for me over the last year or so, hopefully at least a few of you noticed.

I’ve talked about how many of these insects are perhaps dowdy and drab but there is such huge variety in their form, shape, patterns, and behaviour and so many are brighter and more colourful and intriguing than the moths we call butterflies in English. With more than 2500 species in the British Isles, what’s an amateur naturalist going to do, but study, photograph, and write about them?

Yesterday one of my colleagues on the Facebook group “UK Moths Flying Tonight” posted a photo of a moth known as Buff Arches, Habrosyne pyritoides (Hufnagel, 1766). I was envious and hoping to see one today, and there here we are, there was one in the trap, hence my photos. The UK Moths site says of Buff Arches:

The combination of smooth grey, white and russet-brown make this delicately-marked moth one of the prettiest, especially when observed at close range.

Now, many Lepidoptera are patterned and colourful. Often the markings help camouflage the insect making it look like a leaf or a piece of twig. Buff Arches is particularly well marked and intricate and, at first, I couldn’t see through its disguise.

My expert lep friend Leonard Cooper pointed out that it’s not trying to look like a leaf or a twig, it actually resembles a shard of flint. Buff Arches, in other words, has evolved a disguise that makes it look like a piece of naturally napped stone. It is common in wooded areas of the southern half of Britain but is absent from Scotland. There’s a clue in the species’ scientific name as to what the people who named it thought it looked like – Habrosyne pyritoides, that term “pyritoides” literally means resembling pyrite (the mineral iron pyrite, iron sulfide*). And, if you didn’t picture it as a sherd of flint, then thinking of it as a lump of mineral might fool you.

Incidentally, The Cinnabar is so-called for another mineral connection, the red of its wings is very same hue as mercury sulfide, commonly known as cinnabar.

Meanwhile, that Citizen Science stuff I mentioned, well it’s basically about recording what turns up in the garden, I’ve had at least a couple of Cambridgeshire rarities – Light-feathered Rustic and The Spinach – so those have been logged with the County Recorder. You can keep up to date with all the other leps in my logbook here.