Sunday, 14 August 2016

Ni Moth larva ?

I'd welcome confirmation or correction for this one. Found by the long suffering Mrs D on a pot of Basil which was next to a pot of Mint on the window sill - both bought from Waitrose and both apparently of British provenance. On googling "moth caterpillar on Basil" I was led to USA websites showing images of  "Cabbage Looper", which I discovered was Trichoplusia ni - Ni Moth - which I added to my garden list last summer - as did many others I suspect. It looks right for Ni Moth, but I could do with confirmation from the real experts, before I send the images off to UK moths website,

who don't have an image of the larva as yet.
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4 comments:

  1. Peter Hall15 August 2016 at 17:15

    If no-one chips in you could try Reg Fry.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Marc Botham15 August 2016 at 18:13

    Looks quite like Silver Y which given how many have been around would be much more likely - haven't heard about many if any Ni's this year. Silver Y is polyphagous and seems to eat pretty much any herbaceous plant. Larvae for both species seem pretty simialr so wouldn't like to say for sure either way though. BW, Marc

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alastair Driver16 August 2016 at 08:58

    Thanks Marc. Yes, I see now that they are pretty well identical!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Martin Townsend19 August 2016 at 09:17

    I agree with Marc. Simple solution is to keep it and see what emerges.

    ReplyDelete

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