Carpentry with a Scalloped Oak

It sounds like a woodworking term, Scalloped Oak, but it is in fact a moth: Crocallis elinguaria. Here is one specimen that was in the trap this morning, it was a dewy night, there was very little else in the trap, a few Turnips, a Setaceous Hebrew Character, a Yellow Underwing and various micro moths. I believe this is a female, it is paler than the other C. elinguaria I’ve seen in the trap over the last week. They vary a lot in colouration and shading, however. The adults are night-flyers and attracted to light.

The Scalloped Oak, so-named for the brown band across its wings that looks like a piece of oak that has been, well, scalloped. Its scientific name is a little more intriguing. The Crocalis is from Latin and alludes to yellow colouration. elinguaria means “without a tongue”. These moths do not feed, all their feeding was done when they were at the larval stage and the adults are simply sex machines. We could perhaps call it the the yellow, tongueless, sex machine moth.