I have a large Sallow aka Goat Willow (Salix caprea) in my garden. It is currently blooming and last night I had 52 moths of seven species.
One moth confused me for a while. It was quite plain and much larger than the many Common Quaker (Orthosia cerasi). I initially thought it was a pale form of Clouded Drab (Orthosia incerta).
On closer inspection it clearly had antennae with projections which leads me to believe this is a Twin-spotted Quaker (Anorthoa munda) without obvious spots, which I beleive is f. immaculata. I have not seen this before.
A couple of photos (with and without flash) to compare with the normal form of Twin-spotted Quaker, the feint spots in the photo not at all obvious in life.
Neil Fletcher
Walter's Ash, VC24
Hi Neil, To me the twin spots do show up well enough (at least on the upper photo) - but are brown rather than the usual black, so not quite 'immaculate'? This also seems to happen sometimes with other Orthosiini with spots in this position - as illustrated by Dave a couple of years ago with the Lead-coloured Drab (https://upperthamesmoths.blogspot.com/2020/02/things-are-picking-up.html)
ReplyDeleteHi John, the spots were not at all evident in life. I think they only show in the upper photo through the wonders of Photoshop.
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