Night night Atropos...

The sad news today is that Atropos, our resident Death's Head Hawk-Moth has passed away to the great beehives in the sky.

Tomorrow would have been his 13th week as an adult, a very good innings I think, and he may be the oldest known to science ( unless you know different?).

It has been a great pleasure to watch him over the last months, feeding and flying around, and it may be something that I never see again. Atropos, in case you have been held hostage or on the moon since autumn, was reared from a wild caterpillar found creeping along a track in Northants back in September.

If you would like to see him again, just search the labels on the right or scroll through the posts since 17th Sept last year.

As Atropos has starred on small screen, I think some acknowledgements are appropriate.We would like to thank Victoria for finding him in the first place and to his fan club from all over the UK for following his progress, without whom none of this would have been possible. (sniff).

Thank you and goodnight. (sob)

 

Atropos

Atropos will be 9 weeks old on Friday. This equals the oldest I can find on the internet, and that one was in captivity by a breeder who sells the eggs to the public to breed through. The photo above is a phone shot in artificial light but its shows our man feeding on a honeycomb solution. This he gets every other day. You can see that he no longer has the striped stockings and neat white tips to the antennae, but most obvious are his squared off wing tips.  I wonder how long he will continue? He is being added to Christmas card greetings now!

Twitchers.

Moth twitchers that is.

Today was much busier than yesterday with visitors coming to see the Deaths head Hawk-moth. We had around 40 people including two lads who had come especially from Yorkshire to see it. Over the weekend we collected just over £60 in donations for our village hall which isn't bad for a moth.

This afternoon, the moth is livening up a few Facebook pages, sometimes alongside happy faced moth twitchers. For me though the highlight had to be when Richard Dunn managed to take a recording of the moth squeaking as it was handled. Now that's something that cant have happened too often. To hear it for yourself please click Here. But be careful, a Red crowned Crane kicks in immediately afterwards to shock you.

After everyone had gone we managed to get it to feed a little on honey solution. This is a tricky task, as the moth has to be man handled, then its curled proboscis teased out with a pencil and placed in the honey, where it sucks it up like a straw. I am advised by the interweb sources that after a couple of times, the moth gets the hang of it and feeds itself. Thank goodness for that!

The moth is on the logs positioned for the photographers.  This image courtesy of Alan Gilbertson.

A selection from Saturday.

Death's Head Hawk Moth. This image and the one above, courtesy of Ian Fisher.

Atropos.

I am sorry about this, but if you don't like insects look away now. This weekend is all about one insect in particular, the Death's Head Hawk-moth Acherontia atropos.

This morning a small, but quality, audience came up north to pay homage to our newly emerged DHM. It is a British specimen, the caterpillar having been found by Victoria Doleman, near her home in Northamptonshire. We can't thank her enough for being sharp eyed and having the foresight to wonder about the large yellow thing creeping across the path before her. Cheers Vic!

A month later and we have a pristine example of Atropos. It is quite a subdued fellow, spending most of its time motionless while guests filled their cameras and phones with Halloween images, an opportunity that might take a very long time to repeat.

Today was the first time we have carefully handled the moth, and were eager to hear its well known 'squeaking' behaviour. Everyone was delighted when it ran up Jane's arm squeaking like mad, waving those white tipped antennae around and flashing blue and yellow, body and hind wings.

If you would like to see it, please give us a visit tomorrow morning, where we will be at Howick Village Hall again from 10am to 12 noon. We are about 7 miles east of Alnwick, just south of Craster, on the coast.

Expect more of the same on tomorrow's blog....its well worth it.

Its here...

Atropos hatched overnight. I checked before bed and there was a black pupa, but this morning a nice fully formed Deaths Head Hawk-moth had emerged and was hanging on the tank side, fresh as a daisy.

I snatched a few blurry pics in the half light before work this morning, but hope for better tomorrow.

If you are passing and would like to see the moth, I will be having it on display at Howick Village hall tomorrow and Sunday from 10 am - 12 noon. There will be a small donation to the village hall coffers...

[I have tried to email everyone in my address book today and have frozen my emails in the process, so I'm stuck until I can get help.]

A death's head update amongst others...

Tonight we excavated the Death's Head Hawk-moth pupa from the soil after going to ground two weeks ago. Its about 65 mm long and if all goes well should emerge into the much sought after adult in a couple of weeks time. Watch this space...

Last night in the moth trap were a couple of year ticks -

A bevvy of beauties - Merveille du Jour x 2

Pandemis cinnamomeana a male note the white face and antennae.

Silence of the Lambs...

Death's Head Hawk-moth caterpillar.

 Yesterday, Jane's sister, Victoria sent me a text with a photo of this caterpillar saying she had found it walking across the path, near her home in Northampton, and was it dangerous. As soon as I saw it, I got a tad excitable - its a Death's Head Hawk-moth caterpillar like the moths of Hannibal Lecter fame in Silence of the lambs!

Straight away, I gave her instructions on how to post the creature to me immediately as we must have a go at rearing it to adult hood. The moth is the Holy Grail of moth trappers in the UK and this chance might never come again. Next day, before 9am delivery cost a whopping £25 but to see this monster was well worth it. What a belter!

It was placed in a tank with some Privet and Potato tops to feed on but it just wanted to wander around the edge. This must mean that feeding time was over, it was a big lad after all, and its time to get underground to pupate.

After consulting various internet sources and with help from Alan Fairclough, I gathered some nice molehill soil, gave it a blast in the microwave to clear off any undesirables and laid it in the tank so it could bury itself away for a month or so. We didn't think it would go in so quickly! The whole vanishing act took no more than 10 minutes.

All we have to do now is keep the tank at a nice 25 degrees for a month and hopefully the adult will emerge. I'll never sleep!