An American cousin

Gaudeamus/Wahoo - it looks like we're going to get some dry nights. So this year's trapping starts now. Actually it started a little bit earlier, with this moth which was staying at the Sagebrush Inn at Taos, New Mexico, at the same time as Penny and myself two weeks ago.

The States was great for butterflies especially, but I couldn't get near the great big, flapping Swallowtails which swooped around. This moth was a different matter. It was unwakeable, maybe after a late night on the lilacs which honeyfied the whole hotel.

Thanks to the modern wonders of communication, I'm fairly sure that it's a Spotted Tussock, also known as a Yellow-spotted Tiger Moth, according to the quite outstanding website Butterflies and Moths of North America, which must have been early in the IT field because its address is www.butterfliesandmoths.org. I think I'm modestly outstanding too, because I clicked on the Spotted Tussock first of all from the vast list of moths they offer from New Mexico. It has a slight resemblance to our Tussock moths.

Thanks btw to very kind readers who wished me a happy birthday. You can't escape age on the web. As May 18 dawned, or at least before it ended, this blog automatically shifted me on to 59.