Shandy Hall Moths
4 July 2023
4 July 2023 – Mother of Pearl, an Inspiration to Science
Mother of Pearl (Patania ruralis) was another catch I’ve been waiting to see. This was a particularly beautiful and well-marked specimen: the photograph can’t do justice to the iridescence of its wings. The Mother of Pearl’s beauty is such that it almost appears as a tiny, nocturnal fairy: glinting in the moonlight, its flight pattern […]
3 July 2023
28 June 2023 – Buff-tipped Marble
After an unseasonably chilly start to the summer, moths are finally starting to return to the trap at Shandy Hall in larger numbers. The Elephant Hawkmoth (Deilephila elpenor) is a more recent visitor, with the flight season just beginning: We only caught one (the first of the summer) in the previous trap, but this morning […]
3 July 2023
23 June 2023 – Moth or Butterfly?
A Cinnabar (Tyria jacobaeae) paid us a rare visit this morning! Although they do fly after dark, these moths also tend to fly in the day, even in the sunshine and are often mistaken for butterflies. It’s just as well to a hungry predator, because like many similarly-colored butterflies, they are poisonous if ingested. Though […]
26 June 2023
20 June 2023 – Bee, Straw, Emerald and a Ghost
The latest trap contained a bounty of moths that were new to me, and plenty of old friends as well. There were 28 species in total: some showed up in number, like the Straw Dot (Rivula sericealis) and the Buff Ermine (Spilosoma luteum) (each having 14 representatives in the trap) and some, like the lovely Light […]
20 June 2023
17 June 2023 – Old and New
The prehistoric-looking Beautiful Golden Y (Autographa pulchrina) is a new catch for me. The golden yellow spots, combined with the purple and mauve wings, make for an exceedingly striking appearance. The tufted thorax gives an air of a tiny Stegosaurus, perched fearsomely upon a flower petal. This moth flies in June and early July, earlier […]
13 June 2023
12 June 2023 – Sharks in Coxwold
My first time sighting a shark (moth) at Shandy Hall! I’ve been terrified of sharks my whole life, but this little fellow was quite docile and fuzzy – far from fearsome. Shargacucullia refers to a genus of moths known as the Sharks, or, as translated, the Shark-Hooded ones. Verbasci is simply the genitive of Verbascum, […]
10 June 2023
6 June 2023 – A Real Spectacle
Peering into the moth trap this morning yielded a pair of eyes, staring right back! Abrostola tripartita, or ‘Spectacle,’ sports two unmistakable black spots surrounded by white, giving the impression of two eyes, (or perhaps a pair of reading glasses) on the thorax when viewed from the front. Seemingly, these “eyes” could give unsuspecting predators […]
7 August 2022
13 July 2022 – Which is which?
I think this is the most difficult species identification that I have attempted so far. I have spent a couple of hours looking at some micro-moths which I can barely see, but even then they weren’t as perplexing as this one. I am still not 100% sure that my hypothesis (or hymothesis) is correct. I […]
7 August 2022
10 July 2022 – Unusual Plume
The Dot Moth! A rather ‘ordinary’ name for a moth. Many species have dots, so what makes this one so special? The scientific name Melanchra persicariae (black complexion, peach tree) doesn’t really give any clues, though it is more descriptive than just a dot. There is a small orange dot on the thorax, but because […]
6 July 2022
29 June 2022 – Moths in Disguise
Buff-tip (Phalera bucephalia) Here we have the fabulous Buff-tip, blending in flawlessly with a piece of tree bark. It does not stand out in some ways: its buff tips! Hence the name. ‘Buff’ refers to the light-yellow color, as in ‘Buff Ermine’ (a moth of similar colour) not muscles. It makes you wonder why it […]
22 June 2022
20 June 2022 – Headstand Moth
Argyresthia spinosella If you don’t look closely you might well miss the tiny Argyresthia spinosella as it is smaller than the fingernail on my thumb – about 4mm. It is also quite difficult to identify. It is similar to a few others in the Argyresthia family, namely A. conjugella (the Apple Fruit Moth) and A. […]
22 June 2022
17 June 2022 – White-pinion Spotted
White-pinion Spotted (Lomographa bimaculata) How ethereal the White-pinion Spotted looks on a sunny morning. It is such a bright white that its wings are almost transparent. The only immediately recognizable visual features this little moth has are the two brownish dots on the costa. In fact that’s how it came to be named; Loma- meaning […]
Recent Moths
- Rise of the AI Naturalist
- Best Moths for a Haunted Abbey
- The Real and Fake Deaths of Moths
- The Colonizers of Yorkshire
- Glamour in the Dark: Two Newcomers Arrive at Shandy Hall
- 25 July 2023 – Collective Noun for Hawkmoths
- MOTH LIST to August 2023 with links
- 28 July 2023 – TRIPLE New Species Alert!
- 18 July 2023 – A Golden…Plusia!
- 13 July 2023 – Arts and Sciences
- 10 July 2023 – Rise of the Yellow Underwings
- 4 July 2023 – Cold-weather Catch
