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#moths

5 posts5 participants0 posts today

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

The 2022 Korean translation of Locked in Time (by Dr Dean Lomax & published by Columbia University Press) commissioned me to colourise my 50 greyscale illustrations. "A whisper at twilight" shows an eclipse of moths migrating across the North Sea.

Check out Aotearoa's five-finger looper moth, Xyridacma alectoraria. It's a big, elegant, yellow moth with a fringe of *hot pink*.

This one came into my home moth light in January, in Ōtautahi-Christchurch, NZ, and I uploaded it to #iNaturalist today.

My best guess for why it looks like this is that the older leaves of its host plant, five-finger, often turn yellow before they fall. I'm not sure why the hot pink works (but it does).

inaturalist.nz/observations/26

#mothodon#moths#nz

More Common Quakers (pic 1) and Clouded Drabs (pic 2), but first sighting in 2025 of an Early Thorn, one of the leaf-mimic moths. Not as bright and colourful as some of the thorn moths in the height of summer but nice to see one nonetheless (pics 3 & 4). See how the light affects its colouration. 3 & 4 are the same moth.

I made friends with a Mournful Sphinx Moth, also called the Hawk Moth, today on my front porch. Look at those aerodynamic wings, the dead leaf camouflage! So cool!

Moths are symbolic of mystery and the veil between the worlds.

If this is a precursor to Cernunnos paying my front door a visit, though, I am going to be booking it out the back door like the big chicken I am!