'Come inside and meet the missus'
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Thursday, 18 October 2012 07:41
We found this strange caterpillar crawling up a Beech tree in Ebernoe yesterday. I was convinced it was a tussock of some kind and after a little searching I realised I was right. Kinda. It's not a tussock in the true sense. It is in fact a noctuid moth. It's the larvae of the Nut-tree Tussock, a larvae I have not encountered before. A common enough moth but is this a case of Batesian mimicry in larvae? It looks close enough to a Vapourer moth larvae to have briefly fooled me. I had a strange feeling that I had encountered this fella before somewhere. Then I suddenly remembered where...
That is awesome.