That was my moth count on opening the actinic trap this morning, Steve's nine was a veritable bounty - some nice moths too, Steve. It was a different story yesterday morning, the MV trap yielded 25 moths of 10 species. They included three dark green Carpet Moths, and since it's not a busy time I will compare and contrast them with the one I caught on the night of 17/18 October. One of yesterday's moths was on a wall, and it made good it's escape before I could capture it for a more detailed look:
The other two were captured and I was able to obtain upper and underside views:
I'm happy to call all three Red-green Carpet Moths, and incidentally they are very similar in appearance to the ones I have photographs of from previous years and identified as such. However, the one from 18/19 October seems to me to be significantly different in shape and pattern, much greyer, and the underside is paler:
I need to catch another like it!
Still convinced that the last one is AGC - the top three all seem to be (as you suggested) RGC. But you can see why Sam is wary of them; after all, he has to sign them off on behalf of the county.
ReplyDeleteI do not know why, this picture really fascinates me. I love it. Other than that, I am really grateful for the fact that the scientific term was mentioned.
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