Insects and Spiders

Monarch butterfly caterpillars on our swan plant (in New Zealand).

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We had one small indoor plant with one chrysalis that my wife brought back from school last year; now the plant is outside and is covered with 15+ caterpillars.

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Nice pics @Egghead. I'm jealous that you're the right side of the seasons to be seeing plenty of insects.

Having said that I did OK in 2022. At the start of last year I decided to make an effort to try and see a good range of insects across the year and where possible record them on iRecord so there would be the added benefit that the observations could be used for conservation and science. In the end I managed a bit over 1,800 records and just under 700 species. But one of the things that surprised me the most was that you can still see insects in the UK year round if you know where to look even though the winter.

Anyway, this is Pogonocherus hispidus, or the Lesser Thorn-tipped Longhorn Beetle, that I found the day after Boxing Day. It's modus operandi is to look like a bird dropping so that it wont be eaten.

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Found sunning itself on a car outside Walworth Garden, now chilling in the heated greenhouse. They think it might be an escapee from the Horniman museum's butterfly house. I spent a lot of today just staring at this magnificent Atlas Moth.

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Wow.

Bloody hell, how do you lose that! Let them know, as if they’ve got escapees that big, others will be too. Hopefully they’re not keeping anything that’s an invasive threat.

Wow - when I said you can see insects year round in the UK I wasn't expecting that ...

They've been in touch.

Any explanation? It’s not uncommon for people to walk out of butterfly houses with one on their backs but normally a member of staff checks. You’d think they’d notice and atlas moths are pretty chilled for them most part

I didn't speak to them so I don't know. It's not confirmed it's from there but I can't think of anywhere else in the general area it could be from.

This is amazing

Well this I didn't know...

https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1616125123483910161?t=fdOobKPSR_LSib30qCCpPw&s=19

Wow!!

Wow

For real?

I'm with the Nature Boy

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Nature Boy Dick Ham?

you've got to think of the timescales involved. millions and millions of years, for small organisms with short lifespans that is a mind-bogglingly huge number of generations to allow a mutation of cobra-style wings to eventually become dominant in the population.

Yes get that.

Still blows the mind.

The process.
A moth's wing mutates to look slighty vaguely sort of snake like to a predator, who let's it live long enough to have baby moth with similar slightly snaky wing....

Kind of makes sense that a moth of that size would need some sort of defense tho...

I just never saw it before...

But the wingtips do curve unnecessarily.

Is like some armchair wizard asked AI to make a cobra headed moth...

Incredible

A couple of insects from this mornings walk. First up Corizus hyoscyami, one of the Rhopalid bugs that over winters as an adult

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an Orange Ladybird, Halyzia sedecimguttata, with their smart semi-transparent wing cases

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and finally a small female Zygina leafhopper, just a few mm long. It's not possible to separate these out to species level from photos. These leafhoppers remind me of Koi Carp, don't know why ...

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