Let’s break out of the North American rut, shall we? Here’s a gorgeous moth from Latvia, sent by our own 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.
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?
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.
Technically, I think it’s a butterfly and not a moth, but the rest of the text still stands. :)
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!
The UFD is the Eurasian jay Garrulus glandarius.
No clue on the other pretty winged creature.
It’s a Peacock butterfly and the birds a Jay.
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.
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.
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.
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.