Early Larval Life

We're in that period where the faintest glimmer of ento-excitement is fading fast. Opportunities to do anything after work are gone after the change back to GMT, and weekends seem to get shorter (of course they don't - it just feels like it). Before long it will be the annual reflection on what has gone, and thinking ahead to what may come. Invariably targets are set and personal challenges made - which you already know will falter for one reason or another.

Whilst we're in this lull I've got plenty to do as and when I get a chance. Getting my moth records onto Mapmate always falls behind in the peak period around July and usually it is sometime around the November - December period where I finally get them done. I've still got plenty of file management to do to get my photo libraries in order - a long on-going task over a few winters. I've already started working on the list of first and notable records that I mentioned for my own reference. And I've also thought of another garden list that I want to create for reference - Lep Larval Life.

Over the years, without really trying, I've managed to find a number of moth larvae in the garden - including a few mines and cases. The butterfly list is a whole lot shorter, but will be included. In fact the earliest garden moth records I have are of larvae - found casually in August 1998 before I was running any light traps. They also pre-date any of my digital photography, but I did manage to get film photos with an old SLR that I scanned way back in 2002 - I imagine I have the original photos still somewhere in the loft so I could re-scan with better results these days. As it is, the scanned images I have are poor and too small to re-work to anything properly useable. These early larvae were ....

Sycamore - x3 on a small Acer sp. we had in the garden at the time

Dark Dagger - one found on bushes on the front garden beneath the cherry tree

Perhaps more surprising is that I've not seen either of these species in the larval stage since. Aside from a few bouts of enthusiastic beating in spring, any other larvae I see tend to be casual finds.

The garden larval list will only include species found in the garden (or house!) in the larval stage - not anything that I've reared ex-ova from light-trapped adults.

Oak Eggar - ex-ova from a light trapped female - does not count

Scarce Bordered Straw - larva found in cut flowers - does count!