Sunday 24 May 2015

Puss, puss


Here's a moth which would perplex my granddaughter. She has cats and moths well-sorted, the former greeted with a mixture between a purr and a miaow and the latter getting her butterfly noise unless small and squat, in which case she does her bee imitation, blowing a small raspberry.

But a Puss Moth. How do you cope with that? If she was here this weekend, I would try to find out by showing her the real thing, which is still slumbering on a gatepost. As it is, I will show her these photographs when we're down in London on grandparent duty later in the week. She's used to my grubby fingernails.

What a lovely moth! Big and beautiful and with one of the finest caterpillars in the moth world. One of these days I must try to get some eggs and see if I can breed a family. But I think that today's visitor is a male.


There was an absolute crowd of other moths in the trap after the second perfect May night in a row, but  other engagements mean that they will have to wait for my next post. Except for this handsome Figure of Eighty Moth above. Names are often fanciful in the mothy world, but this one is spot-on as I think you'll agree from the detail on the left.

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