We had a "herd" of these in our garden yesterday - we live on the fens near Lincoln. Please could somebody tell us what they are as they are not in our book.
These are longhorn moths, family Adelidae, one of the moth families which has day-active species in it.
The reason you won't easily be able to find pictures of them in books on moths is twofold; firstly as "micromoths" most books don't cover them, being concerned only with the larger moths, and secondly entomology books have a standard layout for insects which for moths is with the wings pinned in a stretched-out position.
In life, the moths never rest like this and the wings-outstretched pose is only ever seen in flying moths, and only then if you're pretty handy with a camera.
This sort of life to dead specimen is quite common in entomology; many tropical species have a shimmer or sheen in life which fades rapidly when the insect dies, and dung beetles have antennae that in life have spread tips opened out like a fan, which in death always close up into a lump.
We had a "herd" of these in our garden yesterday - we live on the fens near Lincoln. Please could somebody tell us what they are as they are not in our book.
These are longhorn moths, family Adelidae, one of the moth families which has day-active species in it.
ReplyDeleteThe reason you won't easily be able to find pictures of them in books on moths is twofold; firstly as "micromoths" most books don't cover them, being concerned only with the larger moths, and secondly entomology books have a standard layout for insects which for moths is with the wings pinned in a stretched-out position.
In life, the moths never rest like this and the wings-outstretched pose is only ever seen in flying moths, and only then if you're pretty handy with a camera.
This sort of life to dead specimen is quite common in entomology; many tropical species have a shimmer or sheen in life which fades rapidly when the insect dies, and dung beetles have antennae that in life have spread tips opened out like a fan, which in death always close up into a lump.
These look like the longhorn moth Nemophora degeerella. Incidentally, there is a good internet site for identifying moths at ukmoths.org.uk
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