I was remarking to my cousin the other day that I have a phobia of moths - her younger son has one, too - but that I had no problem with butterflies. I have no problem either with bees, wasps, ants, spiders and indeed a myriad small creatures that could perhaps actually do me harm, and yet I have a fear of moths - though most of the time I do manage to overcome it. My cousin assured me that this phobia, while irrational as these fears mostly are, is actually quite a common one, though it is unusual not to be afraid of butterflies as well, as her son is.
Our conversation had been sparked off by a butterfly that came fluttering into the room where we were sitting. This summer has been very good for butterflies, with remarkable numbers of cabbage whites, unhappily for growers of brassicas and nasturtiums, but plenty of others too. Hopefully this will reverse the impact of the last two or more rather disappointing summers, at least as far as the more common species are concerned. On one buddleia bush not so long ago I counted upwards of 20 whites, at least a dozen peacocks, plus small tortoiseshells, red admirals, commas and gatekeepers. There most have been 40 or 50 butterflies on this one bush.
Worldwide there are more than 150,000 species of butterfly and moth, which grouped together form the order Lepidoptera. As higher insects, they have a four stage lifestyle, with the egg hatching to produce a caterpillar, which is basically just a growing machine on legs; once grown this becomes a pupa, which is an externally inert phase, but with lots of changes going on internally. In butterflies, the pupa develops a hard skin, and is called a chrysalis (in many moth species the pupa is contained within a protective case called a cocoon). Eventually, the adult or imago emerges, which in some species will live only a few days, though others, like the small tortoiseshell and the peacock, will hibernate as adults. Adult butterflies are nectar feeders, probing suitable flowers with a long, slender proboscis. In the autumn they will also feed on soft fruit, which always caused me some amusement when we had an orchard, as I watched autumn butterflies clearly suffering the effects of alcohol after probing into gently rotting windfall apples!
There are about 2,500 species of lepidoptera in Britain, and most of these are moths, and most of the moths are very small. Butterflies are mostly day-flying, and have wings that are often brightly coloured, which, when the creature is at rest or feeding are either held open or else closed in an upright position above the body. The body is usually more slender in butterflies than in moths. Moth and butterfly caterpillars are almost always herbivorous, but some, especially some species of moths, can be quite damaging to fruit trees and other commercially important plants. Quite a few leaf-miners, damaging leaves from within, are in fact moth caterpillars.
Most moths are very small. Some of the larger moths, like hawk moths and tiger moths, can be brightly coloured and may well be day-fliers. A day flier I’m fond of is the small black and red cinnabar moth, whose yellow and black striped caterpillars can be found on ragwort and groundsel. Most moths, though, are night fliers; often moths have feathery antennae, and they tend to fold their wings flat against the body when at rest. Some species of Hawk Moth count as the largest British moths, with the rare Death’s Head Hawk Moth the biggest of all. Its wingspan is up to four inches, and its body is marked with the image of a skull; unusually, this moth also squeaks, so I think I’d have some justification in being afraid! However, it isn’t a resident of the UK but a migrant species, appearing mostly in the south of England. A moth with a wingspan of about a foot turned up on a windowsill in Lancashire about a year ago. This was a giant atlas moth, normally found in South-East Asia; it had probably escaped from a collection, perhaps on emerging from its cocoon, since the adults of this species live for only about a week.
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