Cryptopod: Lavender Eyes (With Bonus UFD!)

Let’s break out of the North American rut, shall we? Here’s a gorgeous moth from Latvia, sent by our own RQ:

Image shows a moth on a brick sidewalk. The wings are red-orange, with black and purple eyespots.
Cryptopod I by RQ

I’m in love with those eyespots. I’m a sucker for the cool colors, blues and greens and purples, and that lavender eyespot fills me with all kinds of squee. It also vaguely reminds me of Drizzt Do’Urden – lavender eyes and all, you see.

Image is a crop of the previous photo, allowing the moth to be seen closely.
Cryptopod I by RQ

RQ says of her wonderful moth, “The colouring’s pretty fantastic, but it’s a common one around here. I’ve come to realize that, while they come in a different range from tropical nature, the colouring of northern hemisphere birds and insects is by no means boring or monotonous (see also: the [redacted], appended).”

Yep, RQ and I know what this UFD is already, but I figured I’d throw you an extra challenge, because why not?

Image shows a pinkish-brown bird with a dark stripe near its short beak, zebra-stripes on the wings, and dark flight feathers with a white throat and rump.
UFD I by RQ

There you are, my darlings. Two lovely creatures for your identification pleasure.

Plenty of room on this blog for more, you know, and I love it when we go worldwide. Got unidentified biological entities? Send ’em to me! dhunterauthor at gmail will do.

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Cryptopod: Lavender Eyes (With Bonus UFD!)
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8 thoughts on “Cryptopod: Lavender Eyes (With Bonus UFD!)

  1. 2

    Looks like a moth to me. Feathery antennae are faintly visible and the wings are spread at rest, instead of being held together and upright like a butterfly.

    The bird looks like some sort of fly catcher. At least a bug-eater as opposed to a seed eater.

    Off now to do some Google image searching!

  2. 5

    I think I’m wrong about the butterfly. It could Indeed be a moth.Comparing pictures with a Peacock butterfly it actually looks like half a peacock.Going to do some more digging.

  3. 6

    Ok, I’m sticking with the peacock butterfly (inachis io). There does seem to be quite a variation in colouring but I haven’t found any pictures of peacocks that just have one pair of circles on their wings but I can’t find any moths with similar markings either.

  4. 7

    I was convinced it was a moth but looking at Inachis Io on Wikipedia, I believe you are correct. It looks like “half a peacock” because the forewings are covering most of the “eyes” on the hindwings.

    And I’m embarrassed to admit that I spent quite a while browsing “birds of Latvia” on Wikipedia, but did not look at the “Crows and Jays” section. Dang.

  5. 8

    Thanks Trebuchet.Even when I was posting that last comment I thought I might have been corrected.I’ve never seen their wings like that before.
    I think I do have a fail safe method for deciding if something is a butterfly or a moth though. Put my mum in a room with a magazine and then put in said insect.If she continues reading the magazine it’s a butterfly.If she screams and runs leaving a human shaped hole in the door it’s a moth.

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