Wednesday 31 October 2012

Pumpkin pie

Happy Hallowe'en!  I am following a pumpkin theme today, although the Leeds contribution is rather weak. It consists of this Satellite moth which arrived last night; one of the 'orange' versions whose flying saucer markings with their twin attendant satellites (hence the name) are the same colour as a Jack O'Lantern.


Less plausibly, I might argue the same of this Yellow-line Quaker, cousin of the Red-line Q which featured here the other day. It's kind-of pumpkin-coloured, don't you think? Maybe more of a pale squash.


Talking of squashes, the moth you get when you type 'pumpkin' and 'moth' into Google is the Squash Vine Borer, a brightly-coloured creature more like a wasp than a moth. It is a major pest and there are some riveting accounts of farmers and gardeners doing battle with it, such as this one on an enjoyable blog called Backyard Giants. The excellent picture of two of them mating below comes courtesy of photographer Jeff Hahn from Minnesota University's website.


Wandering round Google also led me, as so often happens, to something irrelevant but interesting and enjoyable: to whit: this YouTube clip of a cat called Pumpkin and a moth.


On that note, I'll leave you, and hope that your wizards and witches are benign and you have plenty of chocolate etc with which to ward them off.

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