Lars Pettersson

The larva of Watsonalla uncinula (Spiny Hook-tip)

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.

Photo of a spiny caterpillar of the Heath Fritillary, Mellicta athalia

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
🦋🐛🪲🚜🚛

Hehe but that light module in the mug is bespoke 😃🦋

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

Not sure about the pre-July 2012 population in Finland. In Sweden, volunteers discovered and reported the butterflies coming across the Baltic sea, reaching Gotland in the SE

This is the colonization process in Sweden, starting July 2012 (followed by 95% leaving in 2014-2015)

The circled dots is where the only Swedish populations were found pre-2012

The invasion actually happened in July 2012, then the Scarce Tortoiseshell population stayed a couple of years before moving on so for Sweden, that map mixes the pre-2012 population with those that established during the invasion

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

White butterfly with orange and black stripes and short tails on the hindwings.

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

Thanks, that sounds promising! I was thinking CartoDB first but haven’t seen them using rasters and now the free option seems gone too

I was thinking of putting it online so that you could use positioning through your phone browser and locate yourself on the raster

Amazing pattern! 😀🦋

Trans-Saharan migratory patterns in Vanessa cardui and evidence for a southward leapfrog migration Chemistry; Nature conservation; Ecology; Entomology

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)

Tiny Radar Tags Enable Novel Insights in Fruit Fly Dispersal Using harmonic radar tags weighing less than a milligram, scientists show fruit flies can be closely tracked to reveal flight patterns in real-world environments.

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.

Yellow butterfly with metallic patches of scales surrounded by dark red blotches. Greenish eyes...

Here's an exotic Metalmark to help get you though the week...

Anteros formosus, Parque Estadual do Guartelá, SW of Tibagi, Paraná, Brazil

Flame Carpet, scientific name Xanthorhoe designata.

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