Lmst

Oh look a completely normal piece of dead wood in the moth trap this morning.

#moths #TeamMoth #LondonWildlife

A Pale Prominent moth perched across my finger doing an imitation of a piece of dead wood. Its outline is broken up by tufts and irregular angled shapes that disguise the fact it's a moth.

A close up of the head of the Pale Prominent moth. The long furry scale make it look like an Old English Sheepdog. Or a Wookie. Or a grizzled sea-captain.

Some Black Arches action shots from the morning.

#moths #TeamMoth #LondonWildlife #VC17

A Black Arches moth: a big white moth covered in squiggly black lines.

The same Black Arches moth holding onto a pen and fluttering its wings, showing its huge feathery black antennae and revealing its white hindwings with black borders.

A side-on shot of the moth holding the tip of the pen. It has huge black eyes, spotty black legs, like a dalmatian, and, mysteriously, a bright pink spot at the base of its antennae.

I downloaded the Wimbledon app to check something and I’d forgotten it was the “ladies’ singles“ and the “gentlemen’s singles”.

What a fucking ridiculous country this is.

This bit of madness was in the moth trap this morning. Extraordinary looking thing; actually a kind of lacewing.

I’ve put a link to a pic of one with its head showing.

#TeamMoth #VC17 #LondonWildlife

https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/207009577

A brown leaf shaped thing. There are some clues it’s not actually a leaf, including the tips of some insect feet poking out from underneath, but it’s a remarkable bit of mimicry.

Feeling a bit frazzled after doing the moth trap this morning.

#moths #TeamMoth #VC17 #LondonWildlife

An open moleskine-type ruled notebook with a scruffily written list of moths and tally counts. Both pages have two complete columns of names and the names spill over into the margins at top and bottom.

Harry Rutherford boosted:

1776: Sphinx forte ocellata. A vast insect; appears after it is dusk, flying with an humming noise, & inserting it's tongue into the bloom of the honey-suckle: it scarcely settles on the plants but feeds on the wing in the manner of humming-birds. Omiah, who is gone on board the Resolution, is expected to sail this week for Otaheite with Capt. Cook.

I doubled my previous record count of Elephant Hawkmoth in the moth trap last night! (i.e. there were two of them)

Batrachedra pinicolella/confusella was new for the garden but needs dissection to be identified and I fumbled the process of getting it into a pot. Bad news for my garden list, good news for that individual moth, I guess.
#TeamMoth #moths #VC17 #SouthLondon

An Elephant Hawk-moth on the seedhead of an ornamental poppy. The moth is all pointy angles and vibrant pink; the seedhead is almost circular and pale blue-green.
The picture is from the side and the moth is preparing to fly, so side of the body and underside of the wings are showing, with white legs contrasting against the pink body. It also has some details in a warm olive green.

Slightly underwhelming moth trap this morning given the conditions. It seems ungrateful to say that, because I had at least two new species, but there was a lack of pzazz. No hawks, no tigers, no migrants.

The new species I can confidently without dissecting its genitalia ID is Epinotia signatana, which is "characterised by its generally non-descript appearance".

#TeamMoth #moths

A small brown moth. It is mottled and boring looking.

@Alice_Swaggen
Yeah, that’s one of the bag worms. There’s a couple of groups of moths that make little houses but bag worms are the most notable because some of them are actually pretty big

@Alice_Swaggen this is a moth caterpillar that feeds on lichen

The head of a tiny caterpillar is just visible emerging from a horn shaped case it is carrying around which is covered in lichen

@Alice_Swaggen
There are also some pretty tiny case-bearing moth species as well. Including some with aquatic caterpillars, in fact, in a bit of parallel evolution

@Alice_Swaggen a quick google suggests they just stick a couple of bits of leaf together, it’s not as elaborate as some of the bigger caddis constructions

@Alice_Swaggen Yeah, they're real tiny. maybe 5mm including the antennae. I wasn't sure it was an insect until I took a macro lens to it.

Actually, scrub that, I don't have a point, I just did three tweets in a row so I automatically tried to make a point because of the rhythm.
Or toots or whatever.

Even better though is this. To be fair, the top answer is correct, it's Orthotrichia costalis, a microcaddis that was in my mothtrap. But the following answers are a bat, two bivalves, four fish, a gastropod and a lizard.
I guess the point is don't over-interpret these kind or results, just use them as pointers but check for yourself?

Orthotrichia costalis, a micro-caddisfly. A tiny, slightly hairy-looking elongated insect with dark wings with lighter edges. it has forward pointed antennae with dark bands on them.

A screenshot of the obsidentify app with some ID results. The list reads:
Orthotrichia costalis 56%
Common Pipistrelle 18%
Lepton squamosum 6%
Cuckoo Wrasse 2%

The right answer was on there btw, it was a Lime Hawkmoth caterpillar. When they are ready to pupate some caterpillars lose their distinctive colours and get sort of puffy, so it's not the most classic looking example, but it sure as hell isn't an earthworm or a slug, let alone a toad.
#moths #TeamMoth #VC17

A Lime Hawk-moth caterpillar on the pavement. It's a big fat pinky-grey caterpillar with white speckles and a blue horn at the tail end.

AI animal identification is amazing; but when it goes wrong it goes so wrong. It's amusing but slightly unsettling the way it reveals the alien-ness of process.

A screen from the Obsidentify app with a list of results: Lumbricus terrestrisified
3Lumbricus terrestris
Unidentified Snail or Slug
3%
Common Toad
3%
Earthworm
Lumbricus terrestris

Harry Rutherford boosted:

A truly marvellous object: a 16th-century incense storage container in the shape of a #ship. Coins of the #Roman Emperor Nero, minted between 64 and 68 AD, have been attached as wheels.

📷 Landesmuseum Württemberg

A intricately crafted incense storage container shaped like ship, made of bronze with a weathered patina. The container features a central lighthouse-like structure rising from its deck and is supported by Roman coins serving as decorative wheels, on is missing. The ship’s bow and stern are elevated and adorned with geometric carvings and porthole-like cutouts, enhancing its detailed, miniature design.

A Roman bronze coin, used as one of the ship's wheels, depicting Emperor Nero.

@eirias They really are improbably fancy-looking.

A respectable night in the moth trap: I make it 76 moths of 32 species.
Brown Scallop was the best record, only my second.
Glamour provided by a couple of Hawkmoths, Elephant and Poplar, and Blue-bordered Carpet.
Mild further interest provided by a Dun-bar which is my earliest record by 11 days. Whoo, so exciting.
#TeamMoth #moths #VC17 #LondonWildlife

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