The Ides (and moths) of March

Say Good Morning (or whatever) to Diurnea Fagella, a suitably Latin name for a visitor on the anniversary of Caesar's famous warning. I'm pleased to discover that it also has an unofficial English name which is also appropriate: the March Dagger.

This one is a melanic version, slightly darker than the dominant species and with clearer 'badger' markings of black and white. It must be under the impression that Yorkshire's factories are still belching out soot, which accounted for an enormous amount of melanism in insects in days gone by.

Here it is with my left thumb, because I suddenly thought that you'd not have any idea of its size. It could be enormous. But actually it's very small and indeed comes into the category of UK micromoths, which are a bit of a specialist study. Come retirement, maybe. Btw yes, I do bite my nails but not through stress. I just like the crunchiness of biting them.

In the macro-moth world, things continue to be generally modest and grey 'n' brown - eg this Hebrew Character checking out all the stuff about egg safety with a Small Quaker. Finally, after yesterday's moth-on-a-mountaintop, here's one (a Small Quaker again) appearing to crawl out from an eggbox cone, like some fearful war machine from a bunker.