www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

No Guy, I'm not that devious. It's lepidopterous. Characteristic feeding damage of a honeysuckle feeder.

Misha

could it be 20 plume moth? Or something larger?

Small caterpillar of something larger!

Misha

I think it is one of the bee hawk moths. I'll go for broad-bordered.

Alexander

Hi,

How about a Broad-bordered Bee Hawk-moth larva

Pipped at the post !!

Both of you spot on. Well done. Here's a picture showing the underside of a leaf with the culprit and an unhatched egg. Over to you Alexander.

How well do you know your eye-spots? I suspect these four shouldn't be too difficult:

Mmm... I'm very uncertain about the fourth one, but going clockwise from top left I propose:

Grayling
Ringlet
Meadow brown
Large heath

Guy

I knew the last one would be hardest, but still too easy for you Guy.

Aha!! But I really wasn't sure.

Continuing on the 'four-eyes' theme, here are four (British) fritillaries to identify, all photographed this year in my new home village of Huémoz. It would probably be more fun to try first without looking at a book.






Guy

OK - without looking at a book

Pearl-bordered
High Brown
Silver-washed
Glanville

Cheers,

- Pete

Spot on Pete!

Over to you!

(I'll append the complete originals later, as I've got a bus to catch now)

Guy

Here are those originals:






Guy

The scientific name for the Grizzled Skipper is Pyrgus malvae.

Why is this misleading?

Cheers,

- Pete

Pete, can you offer bonus marks to anyone who can explain how it came to have this misleading name?! I've long wondered, especially as the French name for the butterfly is l'hespérie de la mauve.

Guy

padfield wrote:Pete, can you offer bonus marks to anyone who can explain how it came to have this misleading name?! I've long wondered, especially as the French name for the butterfly is l'hespérie de la mauve.

Guy

No marks - only kudos. But "yes", mucho kudos for anyone explaining that too

BTW - I prefer the French name!

Cheers,

- Pete

Pete Eeles wrote:The scientific name for the Grizzled Skipper is Pyrgus malvae.

Why is this misleading?

Cheers,

- Pete

Is it because in the book "Faerie Wars" the Pyrgus Malvae is the son of Apatura Iris (Purple Emperor)? All I can come up with

Does the Grizzled Skipper not ever eat Mallow as malvae suggests?

Nice try, Dave.

But well done Alexander - spot on.

As for Guy's related question - when Linnaeus was swanning around naming everything in sight, Grizzled Skipper seemed to be closely-related to a whole bunch of species that do feed on mallow. At least, that's what Maitland Emmet's "The Scientific Names of the British Lepidoptera" suggests.

Anyway, over to you Alexander!

Cheers,

- Pete

On a related note, Thecla betulae is not commonly found using birch as a foodplant, though I believe it can take it. The French name for that is 'La thécla du bouleau', which also literally means 'the Thecla of the birch'.

Guy

...another example of wikipedia giving out crap info (see Malva).

Ok, Clouded Yellow males (but not females) have structures on their wings used in mate selection which reflect which wavelenths of light?