Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Matt's butterflies, and the lackey moth.

The other day I found this chap sidling up the door frame, and was rather struck by how well he went with the colour scheme.

However, despite looking in my butterfly book, and on one or two lepidopterous websites, I was unable to identify him. What I did find, though, was Matt's European Butterflies, a really beautiful website, with an invitation to e-mail. So I sent said Matt the photo, and, Bob's yer butterfly, the very next day he was able to inform me that what I had was a lackey moth caterpillar. Lackey moths are little brown jobs, very unremarkable, but their caterpillars are rather fine, as can be seen, with cute blue and black googly 'eyes'.

So thanks Matt!

8 comments:

Zhoen said...

Brown little survivors. Cool.

Lee said...

A Lackey Moth? Well, that explains it then. Lackeys traditionally are supplicant and obedient to their masters: "What? You want me to match your paintwork? Sure thing! No problems, M'am! Anything you say, M'am! Would you like a tad more blue?"

leslee said...

Nice stripes. Heh, Bob's yer butterfly. The only reason I get that is Canadians use the expression. I think my Aussie friend does, too. Not sure why it bypassed the American colonies.

Granny J said...

A handsome caterpillar to grace your woodwork!

Zhoen said...

Moira's left you a thanks over on her blog.

Lucy said...

Thanks.
Z - yep, there's some of us can empathise with that! Thanks for telling me about Moira, I have been over from time to time, so I would have again eventually, but that's great.
Lee - hello, nice to see you here! I wondered why exactly it was called that!
Leslee - uh-huh?!

Lucy said...

and GJ - he is smart isn't he; I've never seen one like that before. The woodworks really only brown but the light makes it look blue and cream too; actually, he's given me an idea for curtains...

Anonymous said...

He is beautiful...and yes, the combination with the wood is perfect.