First flightless female Winter Moth of 2010

[charlie streets]

Farplace, Winter Moths are common to abundant throughout the UK pretty much where ever there are trees except at altitude.

Finding the females though is not that easy as they are tiny and only have rudimentary wings - so flightless rather than wingless.

Charlie.

[STYRBJORN]

Ballooning spiders have been found at altitudes of 15.000m. Jet stream winds take 'em a l-o-o-o-ng way!

[Bruce Williams]

Farplace - Keep checking the fence posts - Fingers' crossed for you too .

Very interesting Styrbjorn. I wonder how they collect this sort of information? Maybe using weather balloons..... .

Bruce

[Bruce Williams]

theresa dockery- Sorry I somehow missed your post the first time through . Yes I'm pretty sure you must be right about there being some sort of evolutionary advantage as "Nature" rarely seems to get it wrong, does it.

Good Hunting!

Bruce

[Deb London]

What size are they? About 3 mm long?

[Bruce Williams]

Deb - I've measured the smallest and largest that I've photographed so far this year and they measured a little under 5.5mm and a tad over 6.5mm respectively. Some of that difference can probably be accounted for by their attitude and posture. Quite often they raise themselves up at the head which probably shortens their apparent length - see this pic taken last year:



Bruce

[Deb London]

Knockout shot, Bruce!

Thanks for the info. I've no idea whether I'll be able to find these moths in London, but I fancy a bit of a moth hunt this winter.

[Bruce Williams]

An experiment.

I still regularly find female Winter Moths along the top of the fence where I photographed the female in the original photo. Considering the life cycle of this species it occurred to me that these fencepost females may be at a real disadvantage as (even if they get to lay fertilised eggs) there is nowhere for the larvae to climb to find food. This afternoon I carefully lifted a female onto my finger and transferred her to the trunk of a nearby tree (at about chin height). She immediately started to climb up at a surprisingly fast rate and was well above head height within just a few minutes of climbing.

While this doesn't exactly prove anything it does suggest that the females will climb much higher - given the chance.

Any thoughts?

Bruce