For my final day working for @savebutterflies.bsky.social, plus I've not posted an image for while - Watsonalla uncinula (Spiny Hook-tip), ~12mm and I believe in it's 3rd instar (happy to be corrected). Bred ex ova from wild-caught, Oxfordshire female - not by me I should add. #MothsMatter

Four hairstreaks from my European travels in 2024 . False ilex , Spanish purple , Blue spot , and Sloe.

Butterfly fact 4. Caterpillars consume 27,000 times their body weight in their brief lives. And then they face an onslaught of predators and parasites. But they can fight back! To understand a butterfly, you need to know its caterpillar. Read all about them in ‘Butterflies' from Bloomsbury

Really interesting stuff & relevant across countries 🦋🐛🪲🚜🚛

That festive office feeling 🎉🥳🦋🎅🧑‍🎄🤶 @biologylu.bsky.social @dagfjarilar.bsky.social #teammoth #teammothsweden #mothsmatter

Yay sunny weather after weeks of rain and the #moths are back 🦋🐛🌞🥳 Six Black-spot Chestnut and a Diamond-back Moth in the trap since yesterday #teammoth #teammothsweden #mothsmatter

Here's London: log-transformed abundance on the left, richness on the right. Previous years in red, 2024 in black. Trend lines fitted using GAM (all years and just 2024). Take home message: 2024 was normal for London. Or, every year is a bad year in the Borough of Camden. #TeamMoth 2/4

...London is constant effort in 1x20W actinic. Number of traps in Devon varies depending on opportunity, and has increased on average over the years. I was running 3 on some nights this autumn. So London more reliable indicator, but catches always low there. Make of that what you will! #TeamMoth 4/4

And here's Devon: log-transformed abundance on the left, richness on the right. Previous years in green, 2024 in black. Trend lines fitted using GAM (all years and just 2024). Take home message: fewer trap nights, but looks fairly typical. Except for a good few days in autumn, but... #TeamMoth 2/4

Right, the numbers are in. What did my moth trap catch in 2024, and how does it compare with previous years, especially as many moth-ers seemed to be reporting low numbers this year? I mainly trap at two sites (my London flat and in-laws place in Devon), so will focus on those. #TeamMoth 1/4

I've joined Bluesky! Hoping to follow and be followed by many of my X/Twitter friends. Please Retweet/Repost or whatever the word is. #invertebrates #insects #moths #dragonflies #wildlife

Brilliant talk by @tokehoye.bsky.social with a shout out to the @insectai.bsky.social COST Action project. Do check it out if you are interested in new tech for insect monitoring! 🪰🦟🪲🦋 #BES2024

I love the crazy names given to moths. A favourite is the day-flying moth Mother Shipton. Named after an infamous Yorkshire witch, if you look hard enough at the wing pattern you can make out the profile of an ugly old face. I found this one in the Yorkshire Wolds. #teammoth #yorkshire #ukwildlife

The African Map Butterfly is very unique, being the only member of its subfamily in Africa. It is also super cool and breathtakingly beautiful! Cyrestis camillus camillus, Kakamega Forest, Kenya.

A couple of days with empty #mothtraps the only nice finding recently was this leafhopper (Cicadellidae) bug last Tuesday, possibly a Tremulicerus #mothsmatter #teammoths

Couldn’t agree more 💥 It also goes both ways — a welcoming attitude from natural history experts towards having data merged in new ways ought to go hand in hand with big data scientists having a firm natural history-based understanding of data, welcoming involvement by species experts

Amazing pattern! 😀🦋

Super stoked to share our latest research on the migratory patterns of painted lady butterflies across the Sahara! 🦋🏜️ www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Dear blueskyers, can anyone following the #qgis #arcview #esri #gis tags help by suggesting a way to put a georeferenced raster with predicted habitat for rare #butterflies online so that it can be used for positioning? Ping @paulcaplat.bsky.social @martinjung.bsky.social

New butterflies in NL: Mallow Skipper (C alceae, kaasjeskruiddikkopje). Short-time populations in the past, but only well established since 2009. First in SE, but now fastest expansion in SW. Can be easier to find as caterpillar than as inconspicuous adult.

The very earliest butterflies flew with dinosaurs and evolved around 100 million years ago as an offshoot of the Lepidoptera (meaning 'scale wings'). Their DNA history has been revealed in a truly remarkable paper by Akito Kawahara www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... (2/2)

Using harmonic radar tags weighing less than a milligram, scientists have shown fruit flies can be tracked to reveal flight patterns and wind-driven effects in real-world environments. The researchers say the technique can open doors to answer new questions about insects flight behavior.

Here's an exotic Metalmark to help get you though the week... Anteros formosus, Parque Estadual do Guartelá, SW of Tibagi, Paraná, Brazil

The Flame Carpet moth is fairly regular in my moth traps in Cheshire between June and September. One of the easiest Carpet moths to identify with the bold band markings across the centre of the wings.#Moths

Good morning, #trap 🤗 #mothsmatter #teammoth

Nice species! 👍

94 yrs ago, Charles Elton asserted: "The 'balance of nature' does not exist and perhaps never has existed. The numbers of wild animals are constantly varying to a greater or less extent, and the variations are usually irregular in period and always irregular in amplitude." ... 🧵1/3

[new paper] You probably suspected that loss of pollinator diversity consistently reduces reproductive success for wild and cultivated plants, but here we quantify it: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Brilliant dataset as always. Is there a reason why woodland birds are doing so well recently. Is it just that woodlands are expanding in Europe (partly due to grassland abandonment)?

#Citizenscience is a powerful tool for early detection of invasive species. Specifically, records submitted to platforms like @inaturalist.bsky.social should form part of surveillance by regulatory authorities. www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-med...

Orcas with fish hats 🐳🐟

Upcoming meeting this autumn: Swedish #Biodiversity Symposium, Gothenburg Oct 21-23 2025 💥🌟🦋🐛 @beccsweden.bsky.social @biologylu.bsky.social swedishbiodiversitysymposium.se/en

@ajcann.bsky.social UV LED battery powered strip light and 5mm foam board - Amazon. Foam board notched each piece to slot together for the X shape. Width of foam board should be about 1mm less than the diameter of the bottle as the bottom LED wrap needs to fit inside the inverted dome #teammoth 1/2

Cut the screw cap off back to the dome (2in hole) of the 2L bottle then cut the dome off at max width, about a 1/4 way down. Inverted and held in place with tape that’s the trap. Cut up an egg box and a stone for ballast for innards. You need a bag for the power bits to keep dry

6). The end of year wrap up. Frankentraps! Homemade or modified off the shelf moth traps. Fun and a cheaper way into trapping and gives you a better view of how to maximise catch. £15 coke bottle trap or my holiday trap, both work, the bottle got Brussels Lace NFG and Drinker #teammoth

7). The end of year wrap up. Moth books, I think all serious moth-ers have so many ID books you need a separate house. So it was nice to read some other mothy literature for a change. Both brilliant and thoroughly enjoyable, thank you @mothyblackburn.bsky.social @jameslowenwild.bsky.social #teammoth

I am excited to join you all on Bluesky - looking forward to lots of ladybird discussions and more @ukceh.bsky.social @uniofexeter.bsky.social @royentsoc.bsky.social @britishecolsoc.bsky.social

Small White #Butterflies are how my #Butterfly Farm began back in 2017. They mean a lot to me as it is also the 1st species reared from a caterpillar when I was just 3 years old 💜🦋💜 #Lepidopterist #conservation

#InsertAnInvert2024 Motion - Jumper Jumping or leaping is a quick method of locomotion, which helps animals escape tough situations in a short burst. Globular springtails get around by backflipping really hard, they spin themselves mid-air multiple times. 🎨 🐡

Happy to be able to help with some #moth sugar bait stuff #teammoth #mothsmatter 🍺🍷🦋😃

I have some PhD projects now available for application if you are interested in insect biodiversity change. Please check out the links below and shout if you have questions!

This year I always had my camera and a small photo box to hand when I was gardening. My children are always finding caterpillars outside, and I wanted to document that a bit this year. With the exception of the garden tiger moth (Arctia caja), they all came from my garden.

Now on the To Read-list! 🦋🐛☃️

After 18 years of dedicated service, I'm retiring from my role as Butterfly Conservation's Senior Data Officer at the end of 2024. It's been a privilege working alongside passionate, dedicated people and being entrusted to build and manage the National Moth Recording Scheme database. >>> #TeamMoth

Nice picture!

Also where the 2019 painted lady migration was first spotted heading north #mothsmatter #butterflies #teammoth

Utetheisa pulchelloides - Heliotrope Moth Always nice when one these beautiful #moths visits the garden. These are more commonly seen in the later summer months and into autumn in Australia. #mothsmatter #teammoth #wildoz #ausinverts #inaturalist

Here is a swarm of Painted Lady butterflies to make your day complete! (Vanessa cardui), Douglas County, Colorado, USA

15 000 fieldworkers | 28 countries | decades of effort | 170 #bird species🐦 Data paper on European long-term population changes in #birds: doi.org/10.1038/s415... Data: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... #ornithology

What I find interesting about the whole mud-puddling phenomenon is that species often congregate together. They are all going for salts so why huddle together? Maybe they home in on conspecifics assuming something good must be there? Here Dark Green Fritillaries and Scotch Argus in Turkey