A female Vapourer

18 Tuesday Nov 2025

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British moths, female Vapourer, flightless female moth, moth, Orgyia antiqua, The Vapourer, Vapourer cocoon, Vapourer eggs

The highlight of my walk last Saturday was finding my first female Vapourer moth (Orgyia antiqua), sitting on her cocoon, presumably newly emerged.

Now, you might look at her and think ‘That doesn’t look like a moth. Where are the wings?’ That’s the amazing thing about a female Vapourer – she’s almost wingless; her wings are so tiny that she’s unable to fly. Once she hatches, the female sits on her cocoon, as this one was, emitting pheromones and waiting for a male to fly by, notice and mate with her. Then, she’ll lay her eggs on the outside of her empty cocoon (as you can see on the other cocoon I found very close to the female, and which I also blogged about earlier this year: Vapourer pupa and eggs, January 2025). As she can’t fly, the female can’t feed, so she will die soon after laying her eggs.

Ominously, there were tiny parasitic wasps hanging around the female, presumably waiting to inject her eggs, so some of those eggs may not produce caterpillars come the spring.

Vapourer cocoon and eggs

02 Thursday Jan 2025

Posted by sconzani in insects, winter

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British moths, moth eggs, moth pupa, Orgyia antiqua, Vapourer, Vapourer cocoon, Vapourer eggs

Here’s another find from December, this one attached to the local park railings. It’s the empty cocoon of a Vapourer moth (Orgyia antiqua), covered in the moth’s eggs. (I’ve blogged about finding one of these cocoons before, though that one was very fresh – see A Vapourer cocoon, 13 October 2023, which also included an image of the caterpillar.) Female Vapourers can’t fly (the UK Moths website has a photo of the female, which, at first sight, doesn’t look like a moth at all) – their sole purpose is to attract a mate and lay eggs. Presumably, this female scarcely moved from her cocoon, immediately emitting male-attracting pheromones as soon as she emerged. A male found and mated with her, and her empty cocoon became a very close and convenient place to lay her eggs.

250102 vapourer

A Vapourer cocoon

13 Friday Oct 2023

Posted by sconzani in insects

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British moths, moth cocoon, Orgyia antiqua, Vapourer, Vapourer cocoon, Vapourer larva

Here’s an intriguing find I made when doing a little leaf-turning during yesterday’s rather damp local meander – a hairy cocoon on willow.

231013 vapourer cocoon

From looking at the yellow and black hairs contained within the silk, I thought perhaps this might have been created by a Pale tussock moth. Fortunately, Andy, one of the moth-ers I follow on Twitter, recognised this cocoon and was able to correct my identification. This was, in fact, created by a Vapourer moth larva (Orgyia antiqua) – below is one I photographed a few years back (it had just shed its skin, the remnants of which can be seen to the left of the caterpillar).

231013 vapourer larva

I’ve not yet seen an adult Vapourer but they are a particularly interesting species, as the female is virtually wingless – you can read more and see some images on the UK Moths website. Andy also introduced me to the Lepiform e.V. website, which, though it is in German, can still be searched using a moth’s scientific name and has an excellent and comprehensive range of images for each species, including larval stages, cocoons, pupae, etc.