Moths

Content on several separate pages: 1 Woolly Bears and Footmen, 2 Geometer Worms, 3 Owlet Moths, 4 Remaining macroes, such as Prominents, 5 Leaf-roller Moths, also known as Tortrixes, 6 Moths having weird wings, such as Clear Wings and Plume Moths, 7 Snout Moths, also known as Pyralids, 8 Remaining microes, such as Concealer Moths, House Moths and Longhorn Moths.

[All pictures of garden wildlife on this page are thumbnails. Click on any thumbnail for a large format to be displayed.]

Introduction to moths

Like butterflies moths are Lepidoptera, a huge group of insects. Some 120,000 species are known to man, but there is little doubt that perhaps the same number of species is still waiting to be discovered. All lepidoptera have rather large wings covered with scales and some species are without any doubt among the most beautiful creatures on earth. The name is derived from Ancient Greek 'lepidos' (scale) and 'pteron' (wing). A person who collects or studies this order is referred to as a lepidopterist.
For a very long time this order has been split up in two groups: butterflies and moths. Scientifically however the two groups do not exist. Since even lepidopterists continue to use this distinction Gardensafari uses it as well. One of the differences between the these groups is that the front and hind wings of moths are connected, which is not the case in butterflies. Another visible feature is the way the antennae are constructed. All butterflies have long, thin antennae with a little knob on top. Some moths also have a wirelike antenna, but it never has the knob on top! Most moths however have antennae which are more complicated: some look like combs, others like brushes and some are five times as long as the insects body. Another distinctive features are the wing patterns and coloration. Even though some moths are beautifully coloured, most are plain with a mix of gray and brown colours. This gives them a perfect camouflage protecting during the daytime. A vast majority of butterflies fly during daytime, but some fly during the night as well. Most moths are nocturnal animals, active during the night and resting during the day. Butterflies are often very colourful. Often the underside of the wing differs completely from the upperside. When butterflies sit on one spot for a longer period of time they have a habit of regularly opening and closing their wings. This is defensive strategy of butterflies that confuses their preditors. The enemies can't get a visual hold of the body of its victim and thus do not know where to attack.

If you can't tell the difference by looking at the colour, try the antennae. A wire with a knob on top? Then it is a butterfly, like the orangetip to the left. Any other shape belongs to a moth like the comblike antenna on the Pale Oak Beauty to the right.

As a rule all butterflies fly by day, however, not all moths fly just by night. There are many species that like to be active during daytime and soaking up the warm sunshine. There are often the most colourful and beautiful species. The well known Silver Y Moth is one of them. Each summer it travels from Africa to Europe in great numbers. It is a brownish owlet that mingles with the butterflies and hover flies visiting the flowers in your garden. The clearwings also fly by day. Their body is black embellished with yellow stripes. Their wings lose most of the scales during the very first flight, making them transparent. In this way they mimic wasps, a very good protection from preditors of moths as most of them will not attack a wasp. Such a mimic however only works during the daytime when the camouflage is visible. This is the reason why such moths always fly by day and hide at night time.

Two moths that are active during hours of daylight: the Silver Y to the left and the clearwing to the right.

In the tropics some moths are really huge and in Europe some species are quite impressive as well. Some of the hawk-moths may reach 13 centimetres (or 5.2") across. The majority of the moths however doesn't even reach two centimetres (or 0.8"). Even in Western-Europe (including Britain) there are thousands of very small species. Many of those are difficult to identify as many of them resemble one another a lot.Just like most butterflies many moths have very long tongues, which are rolled up when not in use. They can only take in liquid food, such as nectar from flowers, or juices from ripe or rotting fruit. The members of a few families of extremely primitive moths still have useable jaws, which they use for crushing pollen. On the other hand lots of adult moths don't even eat at all. Their mouth parts are reduced and they live on the energy they accumulated from their pervious life stage being a caterpillar. Most of these caterpillars are vegetarians: they eat plants, preferably leaves. The smallest species mine leaves which means that they live inside the leaf, eating it from the inside, just like the smallest larvae of some beetles, wasps and flies do. Bigger species live in trees or in shrubs, munching away at the leaves. Some larvae however live deep inside pieces of wood or in stems and roots of various plants. A few species however live on dead materials, such as feathers and hairs. You can find them in old bird's nests etc. In Western-Europe there is just one carnivore: the dun-bar, an owlet moth. Its caterpillars hunt for the caterpillars of other moths, especially tortrixes.

The caterpillars of these two species are not vegetarians. The caterpillar of the White-shouldered House Moth to the left eats wool, while the caterpillar of the Dun-bar to the right is a hunter.

Moths are often split up into two groups: the macrolepidoptera and the microlepidoptera. There is no real scientific basis to this distinction, but it has been around for centuries now. Even the scientists (lepidopterists) often specialize themselves in one of the two. To avoid the discussions that took place in the past, there is a database containing all moth families dividing them in microes and macroes. When you see a moth it is often very unclear to which group it belongs. Most species less than 2 centimetres across are microes, though. Still some families do present you with a problem. Quite a few owlets are very small indeed, like the Common Rustic, measuring some 28 millimetres (1.10"), yet the whole family belongs to the macroes. Some pyralids on the other hand, such as the Small Magpie Moth are about the same size and look even bigger because of their huge wings, but still are considered to be microes.

These two moths are both some 3 centimetres across, yet the Common Rustic to the left is a macro and the Small Magpie Moth is a micro.