Beautiful blue moth...ID help please!

Willow · #1 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 04:29 PM

Hi all,

Can anyone help me with identifying this beautiful moth species, please? It was posing very obligingly on some Sainfoin on the Wiltshire Downs (chalk grassland) a couple of weeks ago. The pupating caterpillar and other caterpillar were on grass stems on the same patch of ground. Could they be the same species...or are they completely different species?

Thanks in advance!

Willow

Oy · #2 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 04:36 PM

Hi

Your moth looks like The Forester - Adscita statices

The Caterpillar could possibly be one of the Burnet Moths.

Tiggrx · #3 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 04:37 PM

I think your moth is a Forester and I think the caterpillar is a Burnet Moth

Oy · #4 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 04:43 PM

.... echo echo

Tiggrx · #5 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 04:44 PM

Good job we said the same things Oy!

Oy · #6 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 04:46 PM

Freaky!

cherrybee · #7 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oy

Freaky!

Only 1 minute between posts so Oy must type faster or think quicker

And there was me looking in all my books and searching internet.Didnt find it tho

Willow · #8 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiggrx

I think your moth is a Forester and I think the caterpillar is a Burnet Moth

Thanks Oy and Tiggrx! That's great! That confirms what I was thinking the moth might be from looking through Michael Chinery's book (I wasn't sure, coz the illustration of the Common Forester in the book makes it look more greeny...but it does say it's one of several similar species...and it's always difficult to reproduce exact colours and tricks of light in illustrations anyway. But it did look right in every other way...and now I know for sure!) Thanks for that - and thanks for the info about the caterpillar too! We saw loads of Burnet moths in a separate place the day before.

I'm just so chuffed to finally have a camera I can use to take insect pics like this now!

Willow · #9 (**permalink**) 28-06-2006, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oy

Freaky!

LOL! Great quick-draw, speed-id'ing going on here! Thanks for trying to look for it too, Cherrybee...I couldn't find it on the internet either....I didn't even have the confidence to i.d it correctly when it was staring me in the face from the pages of my book!

Imaginos · #10 (**permalink**) 29-06-2006, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willow

(I wasn't sure, coz the illustration of the Common Forester in the book makes it look more greeny...but it does say it's one of several similar species...and it's always difficult to reproduce exact colours and tricks of light in illustrations anyway. But it did look right in every other way...and now I know for sure!)

Cistus Forester (Adscita geryon) is a local, but not uncommon species of chalk downland, it can only be reliably separated from the Forester (A. statices) in the field by size-Cistus is slightly smaller (Cistus males: 23-25mm, females 20-22mm, Common males: 26-29mm, 24-26mm), the other similar species is the Scarce Forester (A. globulariae), which has noticibly pointed antennae. All species can look bluish in certain lights.

Sorry to throw a spanner in the works (again!), it probably is Common Forester, but Cistus is a distinct possibility...