Latest news with #moth
Irish Times
19-07-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Eye on Nature: ‘This huge wasp landed on my son'
While on holiday in Croatia in early July this landed on my small son as we walked along the street. It flew off again almost immediately, but he was a bit freaked out. It was huge – almost two inches long. What was it? A Morrissey, Dublin That was scary, right enough. It is the mammoth wasp – Megascolia maculata – Europe's biggest wasp. The female is larger than the male with a body length up to 50mm, males are only 20mm in size. This is a solitary species of wasp. The female lays an egg in the larva of the Rhinoceros beetle and parasitizes it. It then hatches out and feeds on the larva. It develops over the winter in the surrounding soil and emerges the following summer. It visits flowers for nectar as an adult before mating and laying eggs again. Neither the wasp nor the Rhinoceros beetle occur in Ireland. Small Magpie moth seen in Dublin and Co Clare This small moth was seen by Roisin Sheerin on the ceiling of her home in Harold's Cross in Dublin and by Enda Scanlon on a compactor at work in Ennis Co Clare. Both were curious to know what it was. It is a Small Magpie moth. Moths are divided into two groups – macro-moths, the large ones and micro-moths which have a forewing length of 10mm or less. Many moth books only cover the macro-moths so finding out about micros can be more difficult. The Small Magpie is a micro-moth – a common enough species, whose larvae feed on mint and thyme. It is a day-flying species, visiting flowers for nectar and in the hope of meeting members of the opposite sex – considering them as a singles bar, as it were. READ MORE Great Grey Slug. Photograph: Michael Hill We awoke recently to find this slug at the edge of the bed, some 20 feet from an open window. It had left a gluttonous trail across the carpet. We have a large Hosta on the patio but surely 'indoors' would not normally be attractive? I read that broken eggshells or beer in a saucer are an effective deterrent. (More worryingly, my wife said that if it features in our bed, she'll be gone!) Any advice would be welcome. Michael Hill I can offer advice about the slug (you will have to try a different column for matrimonial guidance). This is the voracious Great Grey slug – Limax maximus, sometimes called the Leopard slug. Hosta plants are seemingly a magnet for slugs of various species – why people who don't like slugs grow them is a mystery to me. But slugs don't eat carpets, so it hardly was a gluttonous trail. It may boil down to a choice between the missus and the Hosta, as broken eggshells and saucers of beer – while they deter slugs – are not nice in the bedroom. Cuttlefish on Mweenish Island. Photograph: Philip Berman On Trá Mhór on Mweenish Island, near Carna, we saw dozens of these cuttlefish bones washed up in the sand. In 20 years walking this beach I've never seen so many. What might the explanation be? Philip Berman Cuttlefish are molluscs and these bones are their internal skeleton. They have many tiny holes, which fill with gas and help them to float. They live for two years and die after spawning. It must have been a good breeding year for them this year. Greylag gosling in Ballynahinch. Photograph: Karin Joyce I saw this bird on the greenway near Ballynahinch in Galway. What goose or duck will it be when grown up? Karin Joyce, Co Galway This is a young Greylag Goose. True wild Greylag Geese are migratory and breed in Iceland, visiting us in winter, but escaped domestic Greylag Geese breed here and produce lovely little goslings like this. Please submit your nature query, observation, or photo, with a location, via or by email to weekend@
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Climate
- Irish Times
Silver Life
I walked a long line down the footpath, Keeping my step just off the snow creeping inwards towards the road. The frost snaps and chill seeps, yet there, in the snow, white, silver-life lives. In the rough, pale lumps, Pure, clear crystals form. They spread on the ground And fall from the air; snowflakes, frozen and whirling. They split and mirror, again and again, floating down to those mounds of white. White and plump like the pearls that wash in from the ocean, Rolling and growing, and growing like the waves that carry them, folding in on themselves over and over before crashing. But the froth and foam that frame the shore bear the weight of those waves across the grain of silver sand. The water bleaches the rocks and fills the beach with colour, all colour, White. Rainbow-white, like the opals low and buried beneath strata after strata of earth, and stone, and fossil. The ground itself is alive with silver life, layers upon layers of skeletons and shells digging deep and down, to start again the cycle. Though there is no point to start from, not anymore, it never ends. It shifts and sways like the jellyfish, deeper and darker under. They erupt from white polyps to drift and float and flow, and die and begin again as grey, translucent blots. They stain the sea as the dust litters the land, streaking the ground grey, like the grey streaks the white, marble stones. Marble, metamorphic, like the moth that shreds its chrysalis and sails the sky, searching, looking for light. lunar light, rife with the image of life, reflected off a pale, rocky surface. The moon mirrors it down, kneading the light into blobs of white clouds, fluttering along the sky. Clouds, that hurl those balls of frozen rain towards the road, falling on black tracks. Footprints, in the snow.
The Independent
17-02-2025
- General
- The Independent
Nature lovers urged to join hunt for rare miniscule moth in Scottish mountains
People are being urged to join the search for one of Scotland's smallest species – a moth just a few millimetres long – to help save it from UK extinction. The tiny Highland nymph, which is also nicknamed the Alpine coffee moth because of its cappuccino colours and its habitat in the mountains, is on the edge of extinction in Britain in the face of dwindling habitat. The species, which is found in the Alps and Scandinavia and was only recorded in the UK for the first time in 1983, lives on two species of mountain willows, where its caterpillars eat the inside of leaves. While ecologists had logged the species in suitable habitat the 1990s, it had not been seen in Scotland for 20 years until a team from wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation rediscovered it in 2024 in a colony that had just 30 to 40 individuals. The charity is appealing for volunteers to join a Scotland-wide search for more colonies. And with concerns the moth is on the edge of extinction in the UK because of grazing animals eating away at their habitat, experts are calling for action to manage deer and sheep populations to prevent further loss of willows and allow woodlands to regenerate. The moth has only ever been found at 10 locations in three glens in the Cairngorms National Park: Glen Callater, Glen Clova and Glen Doll, and when Butterfly Conservation started looking for the species in March 2022, the willows the moths lived on had disappeared from some of the old sites. Butterfly Conservation ecologist Patrick Cook said: 'When we first started looking for this moth a few years ago it wasn't really part of our work, it was just because a group of us really wanted to see one but, in some sites where the species was previously found, there was no longer suitable habitat – it then became a real mission to find the moth.' The team went 'up in the hills in all conditions', in what he described as the most challenging survey work Butterfly Conservation had done, eventually finding a small population in Corrie Sharroch, in NatureScot's Corrie Fee national nature reserve in April last year. Butterfly Conservation is working on initiatives to help the moth, including work with landowners to look at small-scale planting of willows near the existing site. The charity and other organisations are hoping to co-ordinate a widespread search across mountainous areas of Scotland to find any evidence of other colonies of the Highland nymph, including running an online training session in the spring to tell people what to look out for. Mr Cook said: 'Finding any more colonies could be extremely difficult but, given the remote locations of the moth, it is an exciting possibility. We must accelerate mountain woodland restoration and revive Scotland's altitudinal treeline before it's too late to save the Alpine coffee moth and other threatened species Sarah Watts, Mountain Woodland Action Group 'Even if we do, the species is still facing serious threats in Scotland – but it could buy us some valuable extra time to save this fantastic moth from extinction in the UK.' Sarah Watts, PhD researcher at the University of Stirling and chair of the Mountain Woodland Action Group, said she was 'absolutely delighted' the moth had been rediscovered but its current status showed how important mountain willow species were for supporting rare upland wildlife. 'We must accelerate mountain woodland restoration and revive Scotland's altitudinal treeline before it's too late to save the Alpine coffee moth and other threatened species. 'This action urgently requires management for low-density, large herbivore populations to remove the pressure of overgrazing at a landscape-scale and enable the regeneration of trees and shrubs across our mountains,' she urged.
