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Green Long-horn (Adela reaumurella) |
A week ago, I'd never heard of a long-horn moth. Saturday, I found the second species for the garden! This male Green Long-horn (
Adela reaumurella) has even more outrageous antennae than the
Meadow Long-horn did; it's like the Texas Longhorn of moths. Add the fact that those antennae are white and waving madly, and you have some pretty extreme eye-catchers. Like its cousin, this little moth is a day-flyer. It's a bit bigger at 7-9mm (up to 1/3 of an inch), and its antennae are a whopping three times its body length. (The female's are slightly shorter.) Its wings are a dark, metallic green, sometimes with a flash of gold near the leading edge. The body and legs are black, and very, very fuzzy. This male was dancing over the leaves of our New Zealand Broadleaf (
Griselinia littoralis), chasing everything that passed (none of which were the appropriate females). Luckily, he's got another few weeks to look for some – their flight period is from April through June. It appears to be a bit of good luck that I spotted him; they're normally found in woodland, heathland, marshes, bogs and scrub. Courting Green Long-horns are typically attracted to oaks and hazels, neither of which we have in the garden. However, it's a common species across England and Wales, and I guess the local hedgerows might count as scrub. It's local in Scotland and a few scattered parts of Ireland. The larval food plant is unknown. Another new one for the list!
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