Story of a moth !
Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2017 4:14 pm
Back in August ,Lynne was tidying in our kitchen,and she asked me to have a look at something she,d found there ,underneath a microwave raised tray (which is rarely used ) a caterpillar had crawled and suspended itself in a cocoon on the underside of the framework,at first I was just going to remove it carefully and put it somewhere safe ,and out of the way in the garden ,but changed my mind and boxed it to see what occurred,well yesterday it emerged ,and when I first saw it,i thought it must be a Silver -Y. moth (Autographa Gramma )
but something didn,t look quite right ! looked through a couple of field guides and came to the conclusion that it could be the quite scarce ( About
50-60 ish records ) Dewicks Plusia (Maccdunnoughia confuse ) ,sent a photo to one of our local experts ,and he also came to the same conclusion. I reckon it must have found its way indoors via some cut flowers bought locally ,or possibly from our garden which contains at least two of its known foodplants ie; Bladder Campion
and Yarrow. Looking through (the classic !) Bernard Skinners moths of the British Isles, it has actually been recorded in Ashford Kent ,at least twice before in 1954 and 1992.
Regards Allan.W.
but something didn,t look quite right ! looked through a couple of field guides and came to the conclusion that it could be the quite scarce ( About
50-60 ish records ) Dewicks Plusia (Maccdunnoughia confuse ) ,sent a photo to one of our local experts ,and he also came to the same conclusion. I reckon it must have found its way indoors via some cut flowers bought locally ,or possibly from our garden which contains at least two of its known foodplants ie; Bladder Campion
and Yarrow. Looking through (the classic !) Bernard Skinners moths of the British Isles, it has actually been recorded in Ashford Kent ,at least twice before in 1954 and 1992.
Regards Allan.W.