Hibernating Hummingbird Hawkmoth

I'm sure that many people have seen the hummingbird hawkmoths hovering around their lavender or verbena flowers this summer.  Our verbena had an almost daily visit from one this summer, but you don't expect to see much of them at this time of year.  I saw one yesterday (8th December).  As I got the ladders down from under the carport, I dislodged a moth.  At first I thought it was dead but when I picked it up it started to vibrate its wing muscles.  I wasn't sure what it was so I dashed for the camera and got a few quick snaps in before it had warmed up enough to fly away.  It may seem odd not to recognize a hummingbird hawkmoth straight away, but at rest (or in a torpor as this one was) they are a fairly plain brown job.

Hummingbird Hawkmoth - Macroglossum stellatarum

The moth book suggests that it is the only one of our hawkmoths that can survive the British winter, and then only in the balmy south-west of the country.  I emailed the picture to the county recorder and he is of the opinion that they can survive the winter in Sussex and the fact that I had found a hibernating one helped support that opinion.  I just hope the disturbance to its slumber didn't use too much energy so that we see it as an early visitor next year.

The usual view - this one was photographed in Sicily feeding on Lantana

Beetle and Spider

Violaceous Ground Beetle

Here are a couple of recent visitors to our garden. The first is a relatively common species of beetle - the Violaceous Ground Beetle. I have seen the term Violet Ground Beetle as well but I think violaceous describes it better because it's not violet, it's black with violet highlights like the hair of many a modern-day goth.  It is nocturnal and flightless (which is probably why it's on the ground!) and eats slugs amongst other things. The Natural History Museum produced a very entertaining blog entry on this beetle which is well worth looking up at blog.nhm.ac.uk/tag/ground-beetle/.

Steatoda nobilis

Our second visitor was even bigger and was this 'false widow' spider with no common name, but goes under the catchy title of Steatoda nobilis.  It was introduced to this country from the Canary Isles or Madeira were it is endemic in the 1870s.  It tends to be associated with houses but in the South of England it can cope with the weather and lives outside.  Like all spiders it is poisonous (that's how they subdue their prey) and is one of only a handful of UK spiders that can break through human skin.  Its bite has been likened to a bee or wasp sting, but that doesn't stop the Daily Mail wallowing in pictures of people with extreme reactions to the bite or tales of near death experiences.  Not that I'd want to be bitten by one, but I'm not reaching for the spider extermination kit either.  There is also a related species found in Australia Steatoda capensis which is also called 'false widow' - as is the Red-back Spider (Lactodectus hasseltii) , the bite of which may well put you in hospital. 

Red-back Spider

New Moth Trap

We decided to upgrade our moth trap with a new Robinson trap which seems better as far as the number of escapees goes.  Also, the moths seem to batter themselves less.

Our first run of the new trap at the weekend produced a good crop of 51 species of moth, including 11 micro-moths.  We also had 2 species each of wasps, ladybirds, and shieldbugs.

The undoubted star of the show, if only in size was this beautiful Convolvulus Hawkmoth.  You can get an idea of the size from the shot of it perched on Maya's wrist. It is a spectacular insect by any measure.

In terms of rarities, though they seem to be getting less rare, this Jersey Tiger could compete with the hawkmoth at least in terms of colour.

And finally, this Common Purple and Gold micro-moth - a pretty moth in its own right - intrigued me.  It doesn't show up well in the photo, but if you look carefully you can see that the antennae curl round the two gold spots on the wing.  This got me thinking - has it evolved to do that, or is it just a natural antenna shape?  I looked at the photos of the only two other specimens of this species that I have and in one the antennae curved away from the spots, in the other they went straight across, so no conclusion there.  But if the spots have evolved to attract a mate, or for camouflage, or to deter predators, then you'd think that evolution wouldn't spoil the effect by draping antennae across them.  I will look at this species carefully in future.

Wasp Catering Service

Sallow Kitten - Furcula furcula

We had quite a good catch in our moth trap this weekend - a little over 40 species, probably the prettiest being this Sallow Kitten.

Sexton Beetle - Nicrophorus humator

We don't always get just moths though and beetles are common visitors like this sexton beetle - Nicrophorus humator - which as its name suggests has a habit of burying small corpses like mice or birds by digging underneath and pulling them down for undisturbed consumption.  If you look closely at its neck you'll see that it is carrying a passenger - an orange mite.

Common Wasp - Vespa vulgaris

Another visitor, who helped herself to yet another visitor was this common wasp - Vespa vulgaris - and you can tell its a female by counting the segments on her antennae.  There should be 12. (Males have 13.)

July Moth Highlights

We have used the moth trap on 3 occasions in July.  On the first occasion we had a bumper crop of 83 moth species (see the earlier post July moths), the second occasion we had 47 species, and on the third we had 33 species.  These numbers include both macro and micro-moths.  In total we had 116 different species in July.  We also had a very high number of species (25) that we had not had here before.

Below are some of the most photogenic species we found.

True Lover's Knot

Sallow Kitten

Leopard Moth

Dusky Sallow

Least Carpet

Horse Fly

Horse flies are not everybody's favourite insect, indeed they are unlikely to be anybody's favourite.  They get the name from their habit of biting horses, their thick hide being no obstacle to the mouthparts of horse flies.  And they are not only partial to a blood meal from horses, but will happily take blood from any mammals, humans included.  They are a large group of insects with about 160 species found in Europe, of which about 30 are found in the UK.  Another common name is the Cleg-fly though I have been unable to find the origin of the name except that it is from old Norse.  It sounds like something you may nail into the soles of your clogs, but then I'm from oop north so what do I know.

Bright Horse-fly

I found this one sat harmlessly sucking nectar from hogweed while looking for bumblebees - and it was at least as big as a bumblebee and I expect a bite from one would be quite painful.  I think that this specimen is called a Bright Horse Fly.  Otherwise known as Hybomitra distinguenda, it is distinguished from H. bimaculata by the extent of the orange marks on its abdomen, and from H. ciureai (a rare species found at Rye Harbour) by the colour at the base of its antennae.  The most striking thing about this insect, apart from its size and its orange marking is those incredible stripey eyes.

I don't think that the ladybird is in any danger from the horse fly, but it does look a very threatening pose.

Bright Horse-fly and scale model

Solitary Bee Hotel

You are probably familiar with bee hotels.  Many shops and companies sell them and they are basically a selection of holes of various sizes up to about 8mm in diameter, or a bunch of bamboo stems which provide ready made holes.  These are to attract solitary bees which use them for 'nesting'.  The term nesting is not entirely like the idea of somewhere to raise young and to look after them until they fledge like birds do.  In the solitary bee world, they are indeed to raise young, but the adult insect will not stick around to look after the brood.  They lay their eggs, protect them as best they can, and then die.  Basically most species use a tube-like space of some sort in which to lay their eggs, and many species use bee hotels whether that is their natural sort of hole or not.  If you buy or make a bee hotel, and why wouldn't you if you want your apple trees pollinated - you will see that they have been used when the end of the holes are blocked off with mud or some other material.

It is not just the end that is blocked up.  The female solitary bee lays an egg at the far end of the tube and then provides the egg with food - in most cases pollen.  She then seals that cell and lays another egg, leaves food, and seals off the cell.  She will carry on doing that until the tube is full.  When the eggs hatch the larva will eat the pollen, turn into a pupa (chrysalis in butterfly terms), and wait for spring when they will emerge as an adult bee to carry on the cycle.  There are more than 220 species of solitary bee in the UK and they differ in where they nest, and how they seal up the cells where the eggs are laid. Mining bees dig holes in the ground and use mud, leafcutter bees use leaves to make a tube, and then seal off the cells with leaves, mason bees use holes in mortar and use mud as seals.

Just recently I have come across two species that use fairly unusual egg-storing methods.  Firstly, one of the Pett badminton players, Jacqui, showed me photographs of a wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum) that had been flying around foxgloves in her garden.  We have had this species in our garden for the first time this year.  The wool carder bee gets its name because it collects long hairs from plants such as the hairs inside foxglove flowers, or the hairs from the leaves of lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina), which we have also had in our garden for the first time this year. (Coincidence?! - no.)  It uses the hairs to seal off the cells, and will happily use the tubes in a bee hotel.

Wool-carder bee

Another species that I came across only recently is the fork-tailed flower bee (Anthophora furcata).  This is the only solitary bee species that digs its hole in dead or rotten wood and I took this picture of it excavating wood from the planks of a footbridge across a ditch near Toot Rock at Pett Level.  I'll cross that bridge with care in future, not because of the young bees there, but because both I and at least one solitary bee know how solid that plank is - or isn't!

Fork-tailed Flower Bee