Insects and Spiders

Between the summer 'showers' yesterday, one of the more colorful soldier flies - a Broad Centurion (Chloromyia formosa)

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Riband wave, i think

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Nice photo. Yes, the less typical remutata form according to UK Moths https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/idaea-aversata/

Cool.
Quite surprised wasp lost that battle (I assume).
This makes me think I must have a go at macro filming at some point.

Diffuser definitely helping - harvestman from this weekend.

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Devil’s coach horse under one of my flowerpots

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From RHS Hampton Court Palace yesterday

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This came in on a pallet to our work. Unfortunately, it is an ex-butterfly.

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Excellent! I went to that event back in 2019 and saw skippers, I guess the surrounding grassland is full of insects that are pleased to have a load of fancy flowers delivered to their doorstep.

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Plenty of butterflies out this evening including this Peacock (Aglais io)

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Wtf is this I found today?

Blue thing looks like a stinger?

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Seemingly not one of the common UK Hawk Moth caterpillars:
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2021/07/hawk-moth-caterpillar-identification/

Great find! It's a Lime Hawk-moth caterpillar - see here for some examples https://www.uksafari.com/limehawkmoth.htm. As the larvae approach maturity they loose their stripes and change colour to a grey-pinkish-brown.

Looks like something bear grylls would eat

When I was in Mallorca in the spring I saw a couple of Clearwing moths, day-flying moths that mimic hornets and wasps. In the UK there are only 14 species of clearwings and all are rarely seen due to their relative scarcity and because they are secretive despite being day-flying. So wanting to see if I could see some in the UK I bought a couple of pheromone lures from Anglian Lepidopteris Supplies. These attract males of specific clearwing species. I've have had no luck over the last couple of weeks but had high hopes for today as it was warm and sunny which is apparently what is needed to get the males flying. I left a lure out in the garden this morning and when I got back found this beauty, an Orange-tailed Clearwing (Synanthedon andrenaeformis). Luckily I managed some reasonable photos before it flew off.

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That’s awesome. Any idea what’s in the pheromone traps? Are they just a blend of a bunch of the normal semiochemicals or species specific? Still hoping to see some hummingbird hawk moths at my dads in Dorset, really fabulous things.

Sorry, no idea what the lures are. There is a bit more detail here https://www.angleps.com/pheromones.php . They make them in batches annually and say lures are species specific, but they also note that 'non-intended target species can be drawn to specific lures as well. Would love to know what they actually do to make the pheromones.

If it warms up later today or tomorrow I'll try a second one I have for Six-belted Clearwing to see if I have any luck with that.

This is incredibly cool

Best of luck - amazing what’s out there, although you have to feel for what must be quite a frustrated clearwing.

From what I can tell most species specific single molecule pheromones are chemically synthesised if described but they’re looking at using volatile natural products from plants and yeasts instead. Not sure how easy it would be to bacterially synthesise these things.

A lot of insect pheromones and semiochemicals however aren’t species specific per se and consist of a blend of low molecular weight aldehydes and other volatile organic compounds. The tricky thing there is reconstituting them in the right ratio to elicit the desired species specific response.

Levelled up as usual.

Like the show Poodle variety.

Can I ask the rough area of your captures?

(In the hope of similar finds)

Back garden in south Oxfordshire, edge of Chilterns. I've also got lures for Currant and Raspberry Clearings so may try the local allotments later in the week.

If you'ed like to do it and want to check what might be in your area follow a species link from https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/systematic-list/#Sesiinae click on the map thumbnail at the bottom of a given species page and then the link 'Viwe NBN Atlas Map' and that will show you the map of current accepted records for that species.

Only other thing to note is most(?) of the clearwings are high summer species so June / July / August is the main period for luring as I understand it.

That's really impressive,
both the Clearwing, (that are 'new' to me),
and the process by which you lured one to be photographable.

that clearwing is nuts, would love to see one of those, i’m waiting for this years first Jersey tiger to appear.

Thank you.

Our scarlet tiger moths have paired up

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Not a great pic (Banded Demoiselle), I must pluck up the courage to take my SLR with me kayaking.