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A well camouflaged flying beastie


Whofan

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This well camouflaged flying beastie caused me to spend part of last Saturday in our local minor injuries unit  - 

 

big_bug

 

The moth is a Lime Hawk moth, about 3" wingspan, and despite its fetching camouflage scheme stands out a bit on a tyre!

 

I picked it up before we drove off and put it on a tree, which led to my spending around an hour in minor injuries last Saturday; I must have touched my lips with my fingers after having touched the moth, and the scales on the moth's wings caused an irritation to my lips and tongue which made me look as though I had a bit of a trout pout! All cleared up by Wednesday this week, with the help of some antihistamines.

 

The camouflage on the moth reminds me of schemes I have seen on real aeroplanes (or at least models), too.

 

 

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I’ve always wanted to see a lime hawk moth, but so far, I’ve just had a couple of poplar hawk moths, and that was on holiday in Suffolk. 
It’s been a terrible year for flying insects in Bedfordshire. At the very least, we’d have good numbers of bees and hoverflies in our garden by now, but there are very few, and that’s with a huge increase in nectar-rich plants. The number of moths is down dramatically from the same time last year. I was actually getting more moths last April than I am this June!

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1 hour ago, stevehnz said:

A rather beautiful creature, albeit with some unsavoury qualities. 

Steve,

In all honesty, it’s probably a defence mechanism, I just reacted badly to it.

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1 hour ago, lasermonkey said:

I’ve always wanted to see a lime hawk moth, but so far, I’ve just had a couple of poplar hawk moths, and that was on holiday in Suffolk. 
It’s been a terrible year for flying insects in Bedfordshire. At the very least, we’d have good numbers of bees and hoverflies in our garden by now, but there are very few, and that’s with a huge increase in nectar-rich plants. The number of moths is down dramatically from the same time last year. I was actually getting more moths last April than I am this June!

Up here in North Worcestershire I can’t say that we have fewer insects, seen plenty of moths, though saying that we saw our first maybug today, very late. 

 

No no end of bees, possibly because the neighbors have got 3 beehives.

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1 hour ago, Tim R-T-C said:

That long, soft fade between the Flat Earth and Bronze Green would give painters nightmares for sure!

 

One of the more amazing things about real life is how astonishingly beautiful natural camouflage is. And effecive.

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