The moth trap actinic lamp was on when I got home last night, so headed out into the garden to see if I could see any activity within. Lots of flies, a few moths already in the trap, mostly small grey ones, a couple of Buff Ermines. But sitting on a Virginia Creeper leaf a more vivid moth than I’d seen in the garden before - Jersey Royal (Euplagia quadripunctaria). It scuttled around for a while, landed on the trap, but didn’t fall in through funnel into the box. It was still sitting on one of the flight baffles when I got up first thing this morning to see what had settled on the egg cartons within.
Jersey Tiger
This striped species is actually a day-flying moth the original range of which was the Channel Islands, hence the name. It has apparently spread to the UK south coast and to Devon and there are some reported in London. To see one in a garden just north of Cambridge is unusual. It’s either an off-course migrant or an individual attempting to expand the species’ range northwards. The hot and dry weather we have had since the end of May here might explain unusual animal behaviour. Incidentally, a rain shower on the afternoon of the 26th July, first one since May.
The awful shots below were done in the dark of the garden with my phone to try and catch it with its wings open. It was fluttering by very quickly in around the actinic tube of the trap, up and down the baffles and then back into the creepers that coat our rear fence close to where I’d set the trap.
Natural history bookseller NHBS Ltd also sells moth traps similar to the Robinson-type trap my friend Rob built way-back-when (2006, actually). I’ve sited his homemade trap in my garden in the hope of seeing a few creatures of the night in the morning. Of course, this process is one of scientific observation and interest, we’re not trapping them to kill them, once caught and observed they are released back into the wild of the back garden. Meanwhile, the NHBS blog – The Hoopoe – has a few tips on setting up and using a trap, which I’ve cribbed and adapted below.
Buff Ermine moth
Site your trap in a garden with lots of nectar-rich native plants, preferably species that open their flowers at night and on which moths like to feed: night-scented stock, evening primrose, honeysuckle, nicotinia. In September and October, ivy blossom can provide an abundant source of nectar for many species of moth.
Opt for a brighter mercury vapour bulb rather than an actinic type lamp if you can as this will attract more moths, although the bright mercury bulb might annoy neighbours that overlook your garden and it also needs protection from the rain as it glows hot and could shatter. Your mileage may vary, Rob caught a lot of moths with his actinic lamp. However, NHBS suggest that you might trap 500-1000 moths with a mercury-bulb trap.
Cloudy, warm, and moonless nights are best, Don’t set your trap on a cold, clear night, especially after a warm spell, as there will be far fewer moths and fewer species venturing out.
Avoid windy or wet nights, many moths will simply not fly and rain might damage your equipment.
Set the trap away from streetlights and switch off any external lighting in your garden as these will attract moths to them rather than the trap.
If there are southerly winds, the UK’s south coast might see increased numbers of migrants carried up from the continent.
You will get best results in July and August when moths are abundant and active. Check local wildlife websites and discussion groups for advice on moths that might be flying at other times of the year, especially in rural areas.
Don’t set your trap too often and avoid setting it on consecutive nights to avoid catching the same moths, you might end up starving them if they’re trapped repeatedly early in the evening before they have eaten.
Check your trap as soon as possible after dawn. If you cannot do so, then make sure it’s not going to be in direct sunlight when the sun rises.
If the rising sun is likely to be incident on your trap in the morning, place a wet sponge in the base of the trap to provide hydrating water for the temporarily incarcerated creatures.
Once you’ve examined, counted, photographed your trawl, release the moths into dense vegetation. If you plan to use the trap again, carry out the release at least 50 metres away from the trapping site to avoid capturing the same moths again, for the sake of the moths.
Watch out for predatory blackbirds and other birds that might latch on to the sudden flurry of dozy moths in the morning and make a meal of them. You can tell if a moth is only just waking up as it will most likely be quivering and vibrating its wings.
Be wary of wasps and hornets that might also have been trapped. Early in the morning these creatures will be fairly docile and can be removed with little risk of you being stung, however.
There was an Elephant Hawk-moth in the trap this morning, and there was me about to give up hope of catching a Hawk in our garden! Anyway, I posted a few pictures on one of the moth groups on Facebook and got some additional advice from a reader there called Jacqueline:
I always release any caught moths at night where there is less chance of them becoming an easy meal. Keep the moths that you don't want a closer look at covered to try and avoid escapees, and place in the cool shade. Ones you want to look closely at or photograph, pot them and put them in the fridge to cool down, then late afternoon, by the time they've had time in the fridge, try photographing them. They will warm up quicker when the weather is warmer so be aware of that and get ready to re-pot safely if they decide to fly. Have a larger tub for the larger moths like the Elephant Hawkmoth etc. When you have finished with photos, put them back in their pots, you can then either keep them on a table until you release at night.
Of course, there is the issue of pipistrelle bats, of which we have several that circulate our garden at dusk. They eat several hundred moths each most days, apparently. So, not sure which approach is best: night or day release…
First time I looked in an actinic moth trap, we’d landed a Poplar Hawk-moth. A phone camera snapshot is now in the moths section of my fast-growing wildlife gallery here, the one that runs in parallel with the bird gallery. The two nights I’ve had the trap lit in my garden, I’ve caught some nice, small species, but no more Hawk-moths. A highlight of last night, although one that didn’t ever enter the trap, was the Jersey Tiger (Euplagia quadripunctaria).
Jersey Tiger
My moth expert friend Brian Stone, of whom I have spoken in the birding context many times, pointed out that this specimen is probably a migrant given my location (north of Cambridge), although it could be due to range expansion. According to Ian UK moths site: “This species was until recently restricted in distribution to the Channel Islands and parts of the [British] south coast. On the mainland, it is commonest in south Devon, but colonies have recently appeared in Dorset and the Isle of Wight, and it has also been found in other southern counties.”
I asked Brian whether I was likely to see any Hawk-moths, having been disappointed after that initial success with the Poplar.
Poplar Hawk-moth
“During peak periods you will attract them without any difficulty,” he told me. “Poplar are double-brooded so you will get them from now on, Elephant should still be flying and Pine is a bit later and still plenty on the wing now but it is scarcer. With the weather [almost record-breaking prolonged period of hot and dry] we are having you could pull in one of the scarcer migrants like Convolvulus or one of the Hyles species.”
However, normally there would be fewer hawk-moths on the wing by late July. Lime Hawk peak in May/June and hardly any are seen by August. He added that it is possible to check out flight periods on local websites in your area. For me, closest would be Hants Moths. Brian also recalls that in one hot year (specifically, 1st July 2005) he trapped a Bedstraw Hawk-moth in his actinic trap, “a proper rarity”.
There is also the issue of whether one should use a trap on consecutive nights. “I tended not to run consecutive nights,” Brian told me. “You will tend to trap a fair few of the same [individual] moths and they need to get out there and do their thing. Plus you get a lie in.”
Literally, the easiest way to identify a moth is to have an expert friend, I’ve mentioned Brian and Rob in previous posts. They have helped me tag a couple of dozen different moth species over the last couple of days. I think, to be honest, that’s basically all of them, I think I identified just one myself.
Scalloped Oak
There are something like 160000 species of moth around the world, many without a name, many yet to be discovered, many species identified and long-since extinct, and many more that we never knew. The earliest known lepidoptera fossils date to between 40 and 50 million years ago.
Cloaked Minor
Etymologically the word moth comes from the Old English moððe, which is close to the Northumbrian word mohðe both similar to common Germanic, Old Norse motti, Dutch mot, and German motte. People with a morbid fear of moths are said to have mottephobia, those who love moths might be referred to as mottephiles.
Ruby Tiger
Okay, so there are a lot of different types of moth, many of them look very, very similar. Many cannot be distinguished from their close relatives by a superficial look at them and require dissection or genetic profiling to distinguish between them. Now, I mentioned having friends who can ID them for you, but obviously, pestering and brain-picking friends grows tiring…for those friends. There are plenty of websites that might help:
http://www.ukmoths.org.uk/ is probably the best place to start. Brian points out that you can use the family thumbnail search as a starting point. “If in doubt with a larger moth try noctuidae for moths with wings held tent-like and geometridae for those resting with the wings flat,” he suggests. “Only a guide though as not all in those families behave the same.
Willow Beauty
Another good resource is http://www.hantsmoths.org.uk/. You can browse by subfamily as well so it makes it a bit easier, he tells me. https://www.norfolkmoths.co.uk is also good for searching by thumbnail. Brian suggests that, “You should soon get a feel for the different families.”
Some of the websites have a “flying tonight” section, which alludes to what species might be in the air at any given time of year and so what you might expect to see in your trap in the morning and what the local pipistrelle bats will be dining on. For those in my locale (near Cambridge, UK), the best resource for the status of any given moth is http://www.hmbg.org/, Brian tells me. It spefically covers the old county of Hunts & Peterborough, but that’s close enough to be useful for anyone across inland East Anglia and the East Midlands, I suspect. There may be moth sites in your region that offer a similar “in the air tonight” update.
One aspect of moths that is truly fascinating is the range and the style of their common names…this is the list of what I’ve ID’ed (or had pointed out to me) just in two mornings of being a nouveau mottephile:
Blood vein (Timandra comae)
Brown-tail (Euproctis chrysorrhoea)
Buff Ermine (Spilosoma lutea)
Burnished Brass (Diachrysia chrysitis)
Cloaked Minor (Mesoligia furuncula)
Common Rustic agg. (Mesapamea secalis)
Copper Underwing (Amphipyra pyramidea)
Dark Arches (Apamea monoglypha)
Dusky Brocade (Apamea remissa)
Dusky Sallow Eremobia ochroleuca
Large Yellow Underwing (Noctua pronuba)
Least Carpet (Idaea rusticata)
Pebble Hook-tip (Drepana falcataria)
Poplar Hawk Moth (Laothoe populi)
Rose-flounced Tabby (Endotricha flammealis)
Ruby Tiger (Phragmatobia fuliginosa)
Scalloped Oak (Crocallis elinguaria)
The Dun-bar (Cosmia trapezina)
The Rustic/The Uncertain (Hoplodrina blanda/octogenaria)
Turnip Moth (Agrotis segetum)
Willow Beauty (Peribatodes rhomboidaria)
Some of those names are quite mundane. Large Yellow for instance, isn’t so grand, but Dusky Brocade, what imagery does that suggest? The Dun-bar sounds like a particularly enticing single-malt Scotch Whisky and The Uncertain beggars endless questions. Some of the names are functional, one might say, Poplar Hawk Moths, presumably lay their eggs preferentially in poplar trees, while the Scalloped Oak perhaps simply looks like a slice of oak wood that has had scallopes removed from its edge. And, how fierce does the Ruby Tiger sound compared to the (newly named) Rose Flounced Tabby?
Hopefully, tomorrow I will have a new collection to share with a whole new range of names. Brian just pointed out that there are about 2800 species of moth in the UK and he reckons he could at one time ID about 1000. He also adds rather ominously that there are probably 700 species in your back garden. This is mothology lark is certainly something of a deep rabbit hole. At least with stamp collecting the critters sit still and don’t fly away.
Mid-July 2018, I set a trap, a Robinson moth trap, constructed by my friend Rob. He’d had lots of success capturing, photographing and ultimately releasing hundreds of different species of moth when his children were young around 2006. We got quite a haul of moths on a trial run in his garden, including an enormous Poplar Hawk, Rustic, Brown-tail, Buff Ermine, Burnished Brass, and many others, here’s an open gallery of some of the moths we saw. It was seeing a Copper Underwing on our conservatory wall that triggered me to borrow the trap from Rob.
Robinson moth trap with actinic light
Another friend, erstwhile moth expert, Brian, named some Rob and I hadn’t put a name to and highlighted the taxonomic discrepancies in a couple to which we (I) had assigned an incorrect monicker or where there is ambiguity without dissection or additional knowledge, examination.
The first night with the trap in my back garden brought high diversity, but mostly very small moths and one or two special (to me as a novice moth lover) species: Burnished Brass (Diachrysia chrysitis), Rose-flounced Tabby (Endotricha flammealis), Yponomeuta sp., The Dun-bar (Cosmia trapezina), Ruby Tiger (Phragmatobia fuliginosa), Cloaked Minor (Mesoligia furuncula)…
My very good friend Rob, former bigMouth chorister, cabinet maker, luthier, painter, photographer, and, as it turns out, amateur lepidopterist built himself a moth trap back in the mid-2000s to entertain his children.
You set the trap up to do its job overnight. It is basically a sealed wooden box full of egg trays, with a big funnel as a collector and an ultraviolet lamp above as an attractor. At night, the flying creatures are attracted to the lamp, find themselves perambulating down the funnel and into the box, and roosting in the egg trays.
There they will happily stay until dawn, when the amateur lepidopterist will pay a visit to see what lurks within, setting them all free again after a few observations are made and photos taken, preferably into undergrowth and bushes some distance away from the trapping site. You can see some of the snaps I took at Rob’s early this morning in a Facebook gallery entitled Mothley Crew, hopefully I will have more species to display tomorrow.
I paid Rob a visit early this morning, by invitation, to see what kind of haul he might have had on a sultry July night. Daytime temperatures have been 30 degrees Celsius plus and nothing lower than about 25 at night. There were plenty of flies and beetles in the trap and no smaller number of moths. Moths of all sizes from tiny little specimens, through White and Buff Ermines, and Large Yellow Underwings 20 millimetres or so from antennae to tail, and at least one much bigger Poplar Hawk Moth.
I snapped a few close-ups with my phone camera while Rob set them free into his garden shrubberies to fly another night or be snaffled up by Pipistrelle Bats. It seemed rather churlish not to offer to borrow the trap to see what kind of mothley crew we might have in our back garden and save a few from the local bats, just for a night. So, almost midday, the trap is set, just need to wait until dark, switch on the lamp, and spend an excitedly restless night dreaming of Elephant Hawk Moths, Netted Carpets, Brimstones, and Angle Shades.
Incidentally, that lamp…it looks like a U-shaped fluorescent tube about 300 mm in length. It’s labelled as an “actinic lamp”. Actinic from the Greek for a ray or beam and pertaining to photography and other areas where light is important. A non-actinic light, such as a red light used in a photography dark room, will not fog photographic film and triggers no photobiological nor photochemical reactions. An actinic light, as used in Rob’s homemade Robinson-type moth trap is the opposite. It’s a full-on bright, white light that reaches deeper into the high-energy blue end of the visible spectrum and is thus highly visible to light-seeking invertebrates.
In terms of etymology, chemist readers will recall the radioactive (beta emitting) element actinium and its relatives the actinides, which will fog photographic film, and much more besides…
The Cinnabar moth (Tyria jacobaeae) can be found throughout Britain, anywhere that its larval foodplants, ragwort and groundsel grow, except northern Scotland. Indeed, the species was introduced into New Zealand, Australia and North America to control poisonous ragwort.
The Cinnabar, flew to actinic light moth trap at night, surprisingly.
The moth is named for the red mineral cinnabar, mercury sulfide, because of the red patches on its predominantly black forewings and its hindwings , edged with black. Like many other brightly coloured moths, it is unpalatable to its would-be predators.
As a keen photographer, I am always on the look out for odd and intriguing things to photograph. In the absence of birds other than skylarks and rooks along the St Ives to Cambridge guided busway I photographed what looked like a silky nest in a blackthorn/hawthorn bush. It was on the left-hand side of the walkway as you approach the Oakington stop (about 400m away in fact). And then another.
I posted the photo to Facebook and asked for comments (to be honest I hadn’t even noticed the caterpillars at the time I took the photo and only did so when I was “developing the print”. I had been musing on it being an immigrant funnel web spider’s nest or similar and keeping my distance.
Singing friend Jill Barrett suggested the caterpillars were those of the oak processionary moth (Thaumetopoea processionea). This species has been causing problems for oaks for a number of years, but it seems infestations were, until recent years, limited to London and environs. Graham Bellamy commented that it was more likely to be a Brown-tail moth given that the nest was growing on a thorn bush rather than an oak tree. This was later confirmed by a contact at the Forestry Commission.
If the Forestry Commission had said these were oak processionaries, that wouldn’t have been good news for our local oaks. It would also have been bad news for anyone who comes into contact with these caterpillars. They have myriad tiny hairs which if they touch skin or eyes or fragments are breathed in can sometimes cause serious inflammation [and irritation of skin, eyes, and lungs].
If you see one of these nests, stay well clear. Don’t try and remove it yourself even if there are no live caterpillars present, there will inevitably be toxic hairs and hair particles left behind. There are many species of hairy caterpillar that can cause similar health problems and there are others that damage different trees.
Here’s the science bit:
The oak processionary moth caterpillar hairs carry lots of soluble proteins, one of those extracted and identified in 1986 is found only in the hairs and causes a reaction on skin identical to that produced by contact with the hairs and so is assumed to be the causative toxin of the inflammatory response. Texier et al named this urticating protein thaumetopoein. It is, they explain, formed from two protein subunits and is present in large quantities in the glands producing the caterpillar's urticating hairs.
“Thaumetopoein: an urticating protein from the hairs and integument of the pine processionary caterpillar (Thaumetopoea pityocampa Schiff., Lepidoptera, Thaumetopoeidae)” by Lamy M, Pastureaud MH, Novak F, Ducombs G, Vincendeau P, Maleville J, Texier L. in Toxicon. 1986;24(4):347-356.
I was just doing a quick web search to see if anyone else had used my neologism mothematics, turns out they have, so it’s not my neologism at all. It was used in a couple of places before I adopted it for my moths and butterflies galleries, including in the title of a scientific research paper:
The mothematics of female pheromone signaling: strategies for aging virgins.
The paper was written by Umbers, Symonds, and Kokko of the Centre of Excellence in Biological Interactions at the Australian National University, in Canberra and published in The American Naturalist in 2015. Quite a provocative title, the paper discusses the cost to female moths in pumping out a pheromone plume to attract a mate. Costs to the female might include the energy and resources costs of the biosynthesis of the pheromones themselves. There might also be unwanted attention from olfactory eavesdroppers, such as parasites and predators who follow the pheromone trail to the female. It is also possible that a pheromone plume might attract too many males. The team suggests that for night-time pheromonal moths, earlier in the night might be optimal.
The team also hinted that younger females might have evolved to signal less intensely, pumping out less pheromone for a shorter time. However, older virgin females become less guarded as they age and will spray their sexual attractant at higher concentration and for longer in an attempt to secure their reproductive success before their time is up.
I briefly review Daniel Marlos’ latest book, Curious World of Bugs, in Six Sexy Science Books. But, I wanted to know more about the book and so offered Marlos a few questions on which he might wax lyrical.
What makes bugs such a fascinating subject?
Bugs make such a fascinating subject because they are ubiquitous. Bugs can be found all over the world in every conceivable environment. Unlike larger animals that flee when they are being observed, bugs couldn’t care less who is watching them and they are ready subjects to be photographed. Many children have a fascination with bugs, though sadly, most adults outgrow this initial reaction to the lower beasts.
What is the most remarkable bug?
This is of course my opinion, but I find the preying mantis to be the most remarkable bug. They are large and formidable predators. There is something almost human in their gestures and they will follow their prey or a larger predator by rotating their heads nearly completely around.
What’s the biggest? And prehistorically how does it compare to those giants of the past?
I would have to question a definition of biggest. The moth with the largest wingspan at twelve inches is the South American white witch. The moth with the greatest surface wing area is the Southeast Asian atlas moth. The longest insect is probably a walkingstick from Borneo that has been recorded at 14 inches long. The insect with the greatest mass is probably the African goliath beetle but the longest beetle is a South American longhorn beetle called a titan beetle that can cover the palm of an adult man, and that doesn’t include its substantial antennae. All of these are dwarfed by a prehistoric dragonfly that has been recorded in the fossil record as having a 30 inch wingspan.
Social insects are, in a sense, meta-organisms aside from our use of bees, do you think we could somehow engineer colonies to carry out other tasks?
Other than honey bees, I don’t think humans would have much luck tapping the social insect world to perform menial labour tasks. Wasps would sting and termites might eat our wooden homes. Ants would compete for food, so it seems we are limited to apiculture when it comes to having social insects perform a service for people.
Bugs will no doubt be here long after we as a species have burned outselves out, might there be a future with “intelligent” bugs?
Depending upon how intelligence is defined, there are numerous intelligent insects. Cockroaches can be taught to run a maze. Social insects like ants, bees, wasps and termites have a highly developed caste system and the individual will sacrifice for the good of the colony. Though social insects care for their young, they are not the only bugs to do so. Many spiders will defend their eggs and hatchlings including the nursery web spiders and the green lynx spider. Many parasitic wasps like the cicada killer, the great golden digger wasp and the tarantula hawk battle and paralyze insects and spiders to provision a nest for their young. Some predatory fireflies mimic the light flashing patterns of more docile species to entrap them for prey, and certain tropical cockroach males are female impersonators that trick more dominant males into mating and while the dominant male is in a compromising position, the female impersonator bites off its competitor’s wings, virtually emasculating him.
Why do you think so many people are so repelled by bugs, despite their obvious merits?
People are often repelled by things they don’t understand, which is one of the reasons humans are often such an intolerant society.
To us Brits, a bug is a germ, a microbe that causes an illness, could that be the subject of The Curious World of Bugs 2.0?
Not a chance. I am not interested in viewing the world through a microscope. Besides, germs are better left to scientists and not artists with an interest in pop culture like me.
I briefly review Daniel Marlos’ latest book, Curious World of Bugs, in