It's a cold blustery cloudy day in much of Aotearoa-NZ (it's hailing outside as I type this) so to brighten up your day here's a snowberry yellow moth.

I just uploaded my photo from 2023 to #iNaturalist as I work through my backlog. It's now the 29th observation on iNat of the species and will be the 33rd on GBIF once my ID is confirmed.

As the name suggests, the caterpillars of this pretty yellow moth eat NZ snowberries (Gaultheria species).

inaturalist.nz/observations/34…
flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon…

#mothodon #moths #Lepidoptera #nz #yellow

The Venezuelan poodle moth is a beautiful animal. There was an article back in 2012 in #TheAtlantic theatlantic.com/culture/archiv… that traced the story and found out that it was real and not an internet fake.

The source of the photo for the Venezuelan poodle moth: flickr.com/photos/artour_a/420…

That album by Arthur Anker contains many more photos of extraordinary neotropical moths flickr.com/photos/artour_a/alb… plus a few other insects.

The photos are simply out of this world. Here are a couple of my favourites:

Amastus epicostosia - aposematic tiger moth flickr.com/photos/artour_a/257…

"Bolognese caterpillar" of a moth (Megalopyge sp.) from Ecuador flickr.com/photos/artour_a/504…

Photos by Arthur Anker.

#moths #Lepidoptera #insects #entomology #PoodleMoth #ArthurAnker #caterpillar