I found t
his flying around in my garden the other day. It seemed to like landing on the stems and leaves of plants, although it was not feeding on the plants as far as I could tell. Hind legs are red and seem fuzzy, much larger than other legs.
his flying around in my garden the other day. It seemed to like landing on the stems and leaves of plants, although it was not feeding on the plants as far as I could tell. Hind legs are red and seem fuzzy, much larger than other legs. Middle legs have a zebra-like pattern.Thorax and wings are black. Abdomen is bright red-orange with three black spots running down the middle.Check out the links to the images. I'm just really curious as to what this thing is, I've never seen anything quite like it before.
Anyone have any ideas/definitive answers?
Anyone have any ideas/definitive answers?
I do have an idea as to what this insect is - although, if I'm right, it is a very unexpected occurrence.
ReplyDeleteSeveral morphological features point to this being one of the clearwing moths (Sesiidae), a diurnally active family which are Batesian mimics of various social and solitary wasps. There are 16 currently known British species - and this certainly isn't any of them!
It appears to be a member of the Nearctic genus Melittia, colloquially known as 'Squash Vine Borers'. Undertake an internet image search for 'Melittia calabaza' (a Mexican species) and 'Melittia cucurbitae' (from the US) and see whether you agree.
If you think I may be right, I'd like to help you take this further by putting you in touch with one or two entomological colleagues who may be able to confirm or correct my provisional determination.
This is potentially a very interesting and important record, and needs further attention.
Hi, I totally agree about the identity of the moth. Well done blueguitar, it took me a long time to come to the same conclusion. Jon, could you please confirm where the moth was seen, was it in the UK?
ReplyDeleteThe unfortnate answer is that I do not know - it was posted to the bug club list from which I reposted it. I will try to find out..
ReplyDelete