Thursday 3 October 2013

It's a small, small world



Say a tiny hello (softly, so as not to deafen him or her) to this morning's scraps of moth - first the strangely shaped Acleris emargana (or it could be the super-closely related Acleris effractana which has only recently been accepted as a distinct secures. You need a genital examination to tell the difference and I'm not qualified or much wanting to carry out one of those).

If you look closely, you can see that the shape is due to way the moth folds its slightly hooked forewings over its back, so tightly that the top half of the hindwing sticks out from the top of the body. Below is a more conventional micro which was sleeping nearby on the same green egg box. I think that this is the Light Brown Apple Moth, Epiphyas postvittana, which first made landfall in the UK from its native Australia in 1936, and - like many of its human compatriots - has spread here ever since.


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