Catching up on my blog reading yesterday, I noticed that last week in the United States at least, according to Rebeccainthewoods, was National Moth Week (read about it here; Scientific American mentions it here). This gives me the opportunity, if a bit late, to show my fruit-piercing moth (Eudocima fullonia), which wanted to come in the house at night a couple of weeks ago.
Eudocima fullonia, top view
I let it in, and it fluttered off somewhere. Next morning it reappeared, and I took it outside to warm up (having learned from my last experience with a butterfly).
Here’s another one – in mid-winter, they must be after citrus fruit. They apparently cause a lot of damage to commercial crops.
Much fluttering around had it on its back.
According to Zborowski and Edwards’s A Guide to Australian Moths, there are 20,000-30,000 moths in Australia (similar to the number of our flowering plant species), but only 400 butterfly species. This compares with North America’s 11,000-12,000 moth species and 700 butterflies.
It’s nice to see such a splash of colour in mid-winter.
This makes it INTERNATIONAL moth week, of course! Nice photos. When I was in Australia I hadn’t really gotten into insects yet and I’m sure I missed out on some cool butterflies etc.
National Moth Week is a global event… or international… in 2012 events were held in 29 countries! Think about National Geographic – they tell stories from all over the world
The next National Moth Week will happen on the last full week of July 2013 – July 20-28. Everyone, Everywhere can participate. Check out the website – http://www.nationalmothweek.org for public events near you, or register you own moth watching event. It can be just you near your house of you can have a moth party…
Moth’ers from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa will participate in July but wee are also thinking of adding a moth week during the southern hemisphere summer… stay tuned! Follow our blog, facebook (national moth week) and/0r Twitter (moth_week).
Thanks for the reminder, Liti. There aren’t so many moths in the Southern Hemisphere in winter, but you never know what you’ll find when you go looking.