He’s arrived!

26 Saturday Mar 2022

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Angle shades moth, British moths, moth, Phlogophora meticulosa

I am delighted to announce that, 32 days after he pupated, Colin the Angle shades moth has hatched (I keep calling him Colin for convenience but he could in fact be a she, a Colleen).

220326 colin moth (2)

Isn’t he gorgeous? Beautifully mottled in shades of brown, beige, peach and green, for camouflage. I offered him the outside this morning, put him on the window ledge, but there’s a cool wind blowing and he made no move. So, he’s back in his jar until the air warms up and he has the strength to make his way in the world.

220326 colin moth (1)

Colin’s coloured up

23 Wednesday Feb 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Angle shades, Angle shades larva, Angle shades moth, Angle shades pupa, British moths, moth pupa

Don’t worry – I won’t be posting too many updates on Colin the caterpillar, now chrysalis. I just thought it was interesting to see how quickly he has changed from looking like a caterpillar to looking like a moth-in-the-making. During Monday morning, after he’d just pupated, he squirmed around a lot, sometimes quite violently. By the end of the day, he had turned a wonderful golden brown colour and showed definite structural signs of the moth he will become, a process that will apparently take between two and three weeks.

220223 Colin in colour

Colin the chrysalis

21 Monday Feb 2022

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Angle shades caterpillar, Angle shades moth, Angle shades pupa, British moths, moth chrysalis, moth pupa

For various reasons (illness – mine, not his, and this run of stormy weather) I was not able to return Colin the caterpillar to the area where I think he must have been living before he hitched a ride home with me. So, I’ve been keeping him in a jar on my desk, where he’s munched happily on a diet of cabbage and Alexanders leaves. For the past 24 hours, I’ve been a bit worried as he’d stopped eating but this morning I discovered why – he’s pupated!

220221 colin the chrysalis

Colin’s story

03 Thursday Feb 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Angle shades caterpillar, Angle shades larva, Angle shades moth, moth caterpillar, moth larva

I thought I would explain about Colin the caterpillar (<click to see yesterday’s video). He appeared on my living room carpet about a week ago (I almost stood on him!) and I can only assume he somehow hitched a ride home on some part of my clothing or my backpack. Like the Winter caterpillars I blogged about on 15 January, Colin is an Angle shades moth larva. At the moment, he’s living in a jar on my desk – I wasn’t sure how long he’d been on the carpet so wanted to feed him up before I took him back to the wild. He’s just been through a moult, from 2nd to 3rd instar I think, so he’ll need to be released soon so he can pupate in more natural surroundings.

61/365 From food to frass

02 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, plants, wildflowers

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#365DaysWild, Alexanders, Angle shades caterpillar, Angle shades larvae, Angle shades moth, British moths, British wildflowers, Phlogophora meticulosa

First I noticed the frass (that’s pooh, to most of us). Then I thought ‘Something fairly big must be in these Alexanders’ flower heads somewhere’. And, sure enough, with a little gentle pulling aside of leaves and flowers, I found the frass creator, very well camouflaged by its light green colouring. And then I thought, ‘There might be more’. And, sure enough, I found three caterpillars on three different plants, and frass on several more plants. These are the larvae of the Angle Shades moth (Phlogophora meticulosa). I thought it seemed rather early for them but my local Butterfly Conservation expert George tells me you can find them pretty much any time of year.