A Drinker cat

19 Thursday Jan 2023

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Drinker, Drinker moth caterpillar, hairy caterpillar, moth caterpillar, moth larva, Philudoria potatoria

It will be a few months yet before I will be seeing any of these hairy beauties but they are worth the wait. These photos show the larva of the Drinker moth (Philudoria potatoria), which can usually be found feeding on grasses and reeds, particularly in damp places. The UK moths website reports that ‘This species gets its English (and Latin) name from the habits of the caterpillar, which is supposed to have a liking for drops of dew.’

230119 drinker cat (1)

In theory, these caterpillars can be found now, as they hibernate when only partly grown, emerging in the spring to continue their development, but I imagine they are currently well hidden from hungry birds. My photos were taken last May, when these caterpillars were almost fully grown and would soon be pupating. I’ve never seen the adult moth but it is also a beautiful creature.

230119 drinker cat (2)

Nemorilla floralis

17 Tuesday Jan 2023

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British flies, British insects, fly, Nemorilla floralis, parasitic fly, parasitoid

Another day, another summer fly. This one, from last May, is a little bristly beauty called Nemorilla floralis, whose name means something like ‘little visitor to the flowery glade’ (according to a tweet by @ivysuckle). Unfortunately, this fly doesn’t live up to its pretty name as it’s a parasitoid, laying its eggs in the living larvae of various micro moths and butterflies.

230117 Nemorilla floralis

Yellow dung fly

16 Monday Jan 2023

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British flies, British insects, Scatophaga stercoraria, Yellow dung fly

I was going through my ‘pending’ photos and realised how many images I have from last summer that never got posted, just because each day’s walk in the warmer weather often produces several potential blog subjects. So, while we wait for the weather to improve, I’ll share the occasional 2022 find. And here’s one I’m sure many of you have seen as it has a very wide distribution – meet the Yellow dung fly (Scatophaga stercoraria). The etymology of its scientific name explains this little creature’s preferred habitat: Scatophaga comes from the Greek skatophagos, from skat-, skōr excrement and phagein to eat, and stercoraria is from the Medieval Latin stercorarium meaning toilet (stercorary is an archaic name for a place [e.g. a covered pit] for the storage of manure secure from the weather) (Merrian-Webster Dictionary). So, Scatophaga stercoraria is the dung eater from the dung pit.

230116 yellow dung fly

Not a wiglet

12 Thursday Jan 2023

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ground beetle, insects in leaf litter, juvenile ground beetle, juvenile insects

Well, I’m not often right but I’m wrong again! So, when is a wiglet not a wiglet? When it’s a ground beetle, one of the Carabidae family. After reading Tuesday’s post, the top local biodiversity recorder sent me a message, saying he thought the juvenile insect was a ground beetle (thank you, Graham) and, after googling, I believe he’s absolutely right.

230112 ground beetle juvenile

My photos didn’t really do the tiny creature justice – you can see some amazing macro images by photographer Paul Iddon, especially of its impressive mouth parts, on the Open Photography Forums website. Also, while googling I found an article on the website of the University of Kentucky, Recognizing Insect Larval Types, which includes excellent information and diagrams to aid identification of insect in their early stages of life. Some of the terminology is American but it’s well worth a look if you’re interested in the subject, and there’s a downloadable pdf.

A wiglet, I think

10 Tuesday Jan 2023

Posted by sconzani in insects, leaves

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Common earwig, earwig, insects in leaf litter, juvenile earwig, wiglet

Did you know juvenile earwigs are called wiglets? I didn’t until I started looking online for images, trying to verify if this really is a juvenile earwig. I’m still not 100% sure but, with those hind pincers, what else could it be? This find was another from my recent leaf-turning adventures.

If you’re interested in earwigs and their relatives, the website Orthoptera and allied insects has some excellent downloadable identification guides for grasshoppers, crickets, earwigs, cockroaches and stick-insects. I have contacted them about my wiglet.

230110 juvenile earwig

Turning over a new leaf

07 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by sconzani in insects, leaves

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fly larva, fly larva on Sycamore leaf, insects in leaf litter, Lauxaniidae, Lauxaniidae larva, leaf-turning, Sycamore leaves

During Wednesday’s walk I spent a little time turning over soggy Sycamore leaves in a small wooded area, hoping for hoverly larvae but just as keen to see what other miniscule beasties might be living in the leaf litter (there were loads). I thought I’d struck pay dirt with this find but was later advised by a hoverfly expert that this is, in fact, a fly larva, one of the Lauxaniidae family of small flies. I’d never really thought about fly larvae before and assumed, before this find, that they were all a bit like the wriggling white maggots you find on rotting meat, so this was a nice surprise. I will be turning over more leaves very soon.

230107 Lauxaniidae larva

New year, first insect

04 Wednesday Jan 2023

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British leafmines, leaf-mining moth larvae, leaf-mining moths, Phyllonorycter leucographella

Appropriately enough for someone who likes finding leaf mines, the first insect I spotted this year was a leafminer, the larva of the moth Phyllonorycter leucographella. I blogged about these back in November 2020 (Leafmines: Phyllonorycter leucographella), when, as now, I found the mines on the orange-berried variety of Firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea). As the entry on this species on the British Leafminers website explains, the autumn generation of these larvae, like this one, overwinter in their mine, before pupating and emerging in the spring.

230104 Phyllonorycter leucographella on pyracantha

The larvae can also be found on many other plant species: the photo below shows the same moth species mining the leaf of a Plane tree in October 2021. In this case, you can see the empty pupal case still in the mine and the exuvia poking out at the top of the mine, from where the moth has emerged.

230104 Phyllonorycter leucographella on plane

Beautiful butterflies, 2022

28 Wednesday Dec 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature

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British butterflies, butterfly

For a variety of reasons, I wasn’t able to venture far from home for my butterfly viewing opportunities this year. As a consequence, the number of species I saw was small, just 30. Of those, 26 species were seen within walking distance of home, which, even after seven and a half years here in Wales, I still find amazing. In my native New Zealand, you would usually only see two species so easily (the introduced White and the self-introduced Monarch), though this does depend, of course, on where you live. The other four species on my list were seen up the valleys, at Aberbargoed, Grayling on the coal spoil tip, and Small heath, Marsh fritillary and Small pearl-bordered fritillary in the Aberbargoed Grasslands National Nature Reserve. Only 29 species are shown in my video, as I didn’t manage to get close enough to the Purple hairstreaks I saw for viable photographs. I am hoping / intending / planning to see more species in 2023, and compiling this video has made me impatient for the return of my beloved, beautiful butterflies.

On narrow-leaved willows

26 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by sconzani in fungi, insects, leaves, trees

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Aculus tetanothrix, Euura proxima, hoverfly larva, insects on narrow-leaved willow, ladybird pupa, leafmines on narrow-leaved willow, mite galls, moth eggs, Phyllonorycter viminiella, rust on willow, sawfly galls

In early October I, and others, began a new leafmine search, for mines on narrow-leaved willows (see Leafmines: Phyllocnistis saligna, 3 October). In the months since, I’ve only found these mines in two locations, partly due to a lack of the host plants and partly, probably, because the moths have yet to spread very far (which may be because of a lack of host plants). I’ll continue the search next autumn but, in the course of my search – and this is one of the brilliant things about staring at leaves – I’ve found many other life forms that were making these leaves their home.

221226 on willow (1)

I found two types of galls: the first, above top, have been made by a species of mite, Aculus tetanothrix, and those immediately above are home to the larvae of the sawfly species, Euura proxima.

221226 on willow (2)

On the underside of one leaf I found this array of what I think are moth eggs and, on the right, is the pupa of a ladybird, and, below those, is a hoverfly larva.

221226 on willow (3)

There was also a different species of leafminer, the tiny moth Phyllonorycter viminiella, and I found a rust, which might be Melampsora caprearum.

My last butterfly

24 Saturday Dec 2022

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British butterfly, butterfly, Red Admiral

Looking at the weather forecast for the next week, I think I can confidently say I’ve seen my final butterfly for 2022. It was on 6 December, a surprisingly warm day in the winter sunshine, when was this slightly battered-looking Red admiral emerged from its over-winter hiding place. I am SO looking forward to the return of the butterflies in 2023, and I’m planning to see a few more of the British species I’ve not yet seen, which will be exciting.

221224 red admiral