The Four o’Clock Moth, Dysphania numana, is a rare but welcome visitor to our suburban garden. This one was feeding happily on the flowers of our Mock Orange yesterday, probably having blown in (quite literally) from its normal rainforest habitat.
Tag: moth
Caterpillar season
Our Wet season is the ideal time for caterpillars since that is when their food plants are growing best, so it makes sense that the Wet is also peak butterfly mating and egg-laying time. In the last week or so I have seen lots of Migrants, Eggflies and Crows and observed both mating and egg-laying; I have also seen a few Hawk-moths and know they have been similarly busy. Here are two caterpillar stories from the last few days.
The Common Crow
Don Herbison-Evans says this caterpillar is usually found on Oleander but is also known to feed on Frangipani. The Desert Rose, Adenium obesum, is a member of the family Apocynaceae, as are both of these, so the Desert Rose is a logical addition to the list. The adult butterfly is a rather plain black and white creature, as the name suggests:
I saw one of them alight on the Desert Rose, curl its abdomen around and lay an egg … then went and got my camera:
The egg is about 1.5 x 1 mm and a close-up of it is here. What will happen to it when the flower opens, I wonder?
The Hawk-moth
Hawk-moths are quite large and heavily built and so are their caterpillars but this is a very young one, about as thick as a toothpick and two-thirds as long. The tail-spine and the eye-spots are characteristic. A gallery of older individuals, both caterpillars and adult moths, may be seen here.
What’s around – mid January 2013
Temperatures have continued to edge up, but only a degree or two, to 33-34 in the daytime after an overnight ‘low’ (quotation marks for the benefit of those who don’t live in the tropics!) of 24-26C. At least we have been spared the blistering heat of inland and southern Australia’s record-breaking heat-wave. It was one of the top news stories for a week and its link to to climate change was made quite explicit. Even the business community noticed.
This time a year ago the Wet had been with us for six or seven weeks and the garden had responded appropriately as per my monthly round-up at the time. This year we are still waiting for real rain (so far we have had 15mm of rain around Christmas Eve and 30mm at New Year but nothing else) and my round-up should be an almost exact copy of what I wrote last month. I’m not going to bother writing it all again, merely note that I have seen my first Elephant Beetles of the season and a few more stray insects including the large moth below.
What’s around – mid September 2012
The biggest event in the garden in the last month has been the flowering of our poplar gum, plus the paperbark, macadamia and bottlebrush. All attracted their quota of nectar-feeders – birds and flying foxes as well as insects.
The weather news is simple: we had a little bit of rain which triggered the flowering of our trees, and since then we have had rather warmer nights and slightly warmer days, with slightly higher humidity. Temperatures are now consistently dropping to 16C overnight (not 8 or 10) and going up to 28 in the daytime, and I do mean ‘a little bit’ of rain – the BoM recorded 1.4mm on August 20 and none before or since. The invertebrates have responded to the warmth and food with a surge in numbers and variety:
Butterflies and Moths (Lepidoptera): numerous Chocolate Soldiers and Eurema; a few Varied Eggfly and Evening Brown; and visiting Cairns Birdwing, Orchard Swallowtails and Ulysses. Magpie Moths are common again, and I loved the Zodiac Moth on the poplar gum. Nearer ground level, I spotted a pretty white moth, Amerila rubripes. It does have a ‘common name’ – Walker’s Frother – but it’s not well known enough to be a genuinely common name.
Flies and their relations (Diptera): Tiger craneflies are abundant, to the extent that I saw half a dozen mating pairs in half an hour one morning, and the orange-headed Plecia flies are also mating. Our tiny metallic Dolichopodidae are as common as ever, and there are a few blowflies too. Mosquitoes? Yes, unfortunately, but not too many.
Wasps, Bees and Ants (Hymenoptera): Honey bees came to the flowering trees and various native bees are also around. The small parasitic wasps (Braconidae) are back, and so are paper wasps and mud-daubers.
Spiders and other Arachnids: The orb-weavers suffered housekeeping agonies from the poplar gum as flower debris kept falling into their webs, making them useless for trapping prey. Spiny spiders and the Silver Orb-weaver are the commonest at the moment, with a few St Andrew’s Cross spiders for variety. Jumping spiders, Lynx and flower spiders are all to be found, too.
Others: A praying mantis was resting on our lounge-room wall last night and I have seen a few dragonflies cruising through our airspace. There very few grasshoppers of any size or variety but lacewings, both green and brown, have been attracted to our lights in the evenings. Of the Hemiptera, my little aqua-legs sap-sucker is back and I have seen a few others; not many, though, and I suspect they are waiting for more new greenery.
Magpie moth
These attractive moths are normally quite common in our garden but have been on holiday – I don’t know where – for the last few months.
They are much more colourful in flight, because you can see their bright orange striped abdomen. This picture of one feeding on a flower gives you a glimpse.