Species Of The Week Number 35: Flame Carpet

Flame Carpet. Common Quaker. Hebrew Character. Early Thorn. Brindled Pug. Whether you love or loath them, you cant deny moths have the best names in all the animal kingdom. And all those moths have turned up in the Meanwood Road Project's moth trap in the last month.

The lepidopterists bible, the Field Guide to Moths of Great Britain and Ireland, tells us that the Flame Carpet has two generations each year and flies between May and September. It is a relatively common species and is can be found in moorland as well as woodland. Fear not though, it cant be found in your carpet.

We are the proud owners (thanks to the National Heritage Lottery Fund) of a posh battery-operated light trap. If you want to find out what moths are in your garden drop us an email at meanwoodroadproject@gmail.com We can bring it over and set it up one evening (it turns on automatically when it gets dark) and pop back the following morning to help identify any moths - which we can then release. No moths are harmed in the making of this wildlife survey.

We are also planning moth and wine evenings on Sugarwell Hill in the coming weeks, where we set the trap up and then wait around drinking wine and see if owt turns up. The first one is this Thursday, 25th May, and we'll be on the hill behind the Farm from about 9pm to midnight alongside students from the Ecology course at Leeds University. Everyone welcome (particularly moths)! BYOB.

The Flame Carpet is a member of the Geometridae family of moths which has over 300 species recorded in the UK. Whoever named all the species had a bit of a thing about carpets and was probably on the wine themselves when they decided on other species names. So we also have Fortified Carpet, Oblique Carpet, Dark-barred Twin-Spot Carpet, Galium Carpet and Sharp-angled Carpet to look out for on Thursday.

Publicado el mayo 23, 2023 04:57 TARDE por clunym