Day 267 - Crackingly Beautiful and Marvellous Clouded Border Moth

Clouded Border Moth (Lomaspilis marginata)

Hey everyone today's Day 267, as you might know by now I go to a lot of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Reserves around and about North Yorkshire. There are lots of different habitats in the different reserves. One I have only been to once or twice is Askham Bog, which I must go back to soon as I'd like to see how good it is for dragonflies on a nice sunny day. Last time I visited I saw yesterdays species, the Meadow Brown, as well as today's post which is themed around the Moth side of things. In fact, a lot of my posts lately have been so you should be well used to the layout of them by now. This particular moth is one that I really loved looking at and getting pictures of him. From the title and pictures you'll know that I am talking about the Clouded Border Moth.

So, here are the facts:

• They aren't actually that common living mostly in East Anglia but they are common in a diagonal strip across the UK from the South-West to Central East. They are found a bit in Ireland.

I'd disturbed it and it sat nicely on this holly for me

• They fly most commonly between May and July at night. They can be disturbed in the day, like what happened with this one.

• There is some controversy between how big their wingspan is but I will say that they can be up to 38mm.

• They are mainly White with some black markings on the top of their fore-wings and around the rest of their wings.

• In the photos that I saw and one website told me that the black colours on the Moth vary lots. I saw one that looked Brown!

• On top of that there are some rare variations, completely Black or White individuals can be seen, even rarer completely Brown ones as well as an extremely rare diluta form where the black colours are replaced with a yellow or gold colour!

• The larval food-plants are mainly Willow, Sallow and Hazel but they have also been seen on Birch and Poplar.

  

  Askham Bog has great plants too like this Royal Fern
  - Europes largest fern 

• They spend the winter as a pupa and apparently can spend up to four winters in this state.

• The main habitats to see these moths are heaths, bogs and damp woodlands.

Well, that's what I found out about this pretty little species. If you want to find out more, its quite tricky but try these sites:

Habitas.org - Clouded Border Moth

UK Moths - Clouded Border Moth

UK Safari - Clouded Border Moth

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.