www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Can anyone help with these photos....the first is what I think maybe a Peacock..but that is not all of the story...I was out yesterday on a new site for me , namely Gordon Moss SWT reserve.....weather was atrocious....east coast Haar, so I was looking a little more closely at the vegetation, when I found that in one open area surrounded by Birch, some of the plantain leaves and violet leaves, had been nibbled. On further investigation ,I found some caterpillar poo, and then some web tents...the leaves had been drawn together......I immediatley thought that I had found some Dark Green Frits or something ......when out popped this little pillar.....looks like a peacock.....I dont know.......the thing is ......I looked for some more and found roughly 50 in a small area. I thought Peacock layed eggs on nettle........have I been misled.If you have any information on this I would be very thankfull.
The second pic is a small pillar on nettle ...in a tent....where I would have expected to find the Peacock.
The final picture is a plant id......it is very un British looking found it on marshland open , Gordon Moss SE Scotland.
If you can help , I thank you so much . IAC.

Hi IAC - no photos came through. If you used the "Upload Attachment" option, you also need to select the "Place inline" option to include the uploaded image in the post.

Cheers,

- Pete

Hi Pete thanks for the reminder....I just plain forgot to attach em

Top photo looks like some kind of sawfly larvae to me. Don't think it is that of a butterfly

Trev

I'm inclined to agree. There is also a huge variety of sawfly larvae - see here: http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74/sawfly_larvae

Cheers,

- Pete

To me the bottom larva looks like it might be the moth Depressaria daucella. They live in damp places usually around water-dropwort and weave the plant into a tunnel into which they can retract very fast.

http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=2075

AH

Trev, Pete , M-Galathea....Thankyou so much for your replies...Sawflies !!! I really am beaten all ends up with sawflies.....I would not know where to start, I certainly would never have guessed. Thanks for the link Pete.....did it help?..you ask!..the answer is no !!!.....I had no idea there were so many species of Sawfly....this is mind boggling.
I am a bit of a Butterfly nazi you see, I am only looking for Butterflies and everything else gets pretty much ignored.
I have a friend who specializes in bees, I was under the impression I could send her photos of bees and she would simply tell me what they were..ha...ha...ha......No chance..so many species ,sub-species.....mind blowing. But thankyou guys,I have learned something ,and that is what it is all about.
M-Galathea, I am very interested in moths but I have never had the time to learn anything about them..they are just as spectacular for me as butterflies......however, all those brown ones...........hundreds and hundreds of brown ones.!!!!!!!!!!!
I looked up your suggestion on Uk moths....I dont think you are very far away, I did find it on wetland.....and dropwort does exist on this site.....I also looked up more Depressaria species.............and thats when I began to despair at the fine lines of identification......just incredible.
Any help on that ridiculous plant yet?.........it cant be native..on plants I am not to bad, and this I sure aint seen before....garden escapee me thinks.....a south african lily or summit .
Anyway thanks again all ........IAC

Isn't the plant that great big Fritillary.... imperialis, not quite in it's glory??

Thanks Paul,I have looked this up and..........maybe just maybe,I will revisit this site soon to check it out , it did not look to far from flowering, so maybe then all will be revealed. Thanks again.........IAC.