Lime Hawkmoth

This Lime Hawkmoth (Mimas tiliae) was in the moth trap this morning. I had used the actinic light again, this time in the back garden, and I had a reasonable catch. This is a very large moth - its forewing can be up to 39mm from apex to tip.


I also caught a Foxglove Pug moth (Eupithecia pulchellata) which has a wing span of about 22mm (that is - both wings!). Pug moths are tiny and it amuses me that their Latin names are often very long, whereas larger moths, like the Hawkmoth above have relatively short Latin names, but are themselves huge!

Another catch was a Swallow Prominent (Pheosia tremula) which has a forewing length from apex to tip of 22-28 mm - it is an average-sized moth.

The Foxglove Pug and Swallow Prominent are in my folio and are also in the Blippers Community Overspill group page on Flickr.

I caught 17 moths of 12 species - much fewer than in previous years at the end of May, but hopefully numbers will pick up. I send all my moth records to the County Recorder at the end of each year, and they are then included in the National Moth Recording Scheme database and the NBN (National Biodiversity Network Gateway) databases (before I retired I was involved in a small way in the construction of the NBN Gateway, and in a much more significant way with other UK Government Wildlife Conservation websites).