The Leopard moth is a distinctive visitor which usually pays me a visit once a year. There is something wasp-like about its colouring and shape although no UK wasps are anything like its size, thank goodness.
When I spotted it first, it was hunkered down on an eggbox cone, above, but as soon as I tried a little tickling to awake it from deep slumbers, it reflexed into the shape of a comma.
I doubt that any bird would touch it because the deterrent colouring is very convincing. Here's a closer look at that 'waspiness' with the curving tail revealing the yellow segments between the black ones.
For all its beauty and protection, the Leopard lives a brief life of ten days at the most because it has no mouth parts and cannot feed; not even nectar. A rum creature altogether but a very nice one to study at leisure at close quarters.
The trap's other overnighters included the Grey or Dark Dagger above - without dissection of the genitalia (yuk), they cannot be told apart, a Common Carpet pretending to be a butterfly and the bright little micro-moth Archips podana or the Large Fruit Tortrix.
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