Tuesday, 31 March 2009

Carpet and Moss

The bright green of this moth larva caught my eye as I walked past. Investigation shows that it's the larva of the Common Marbled Carpet - a handsome moth that I've shown before.

Detail of the head end shows that the front legs are all condensed into one group, and that it has five ocelli or sub-eyes.

These are the ripening capsules of the moss Bryum capillare:

2 comments:

Gill said...

What a shot! Given that I guess the whole thing is only an inch or so long at best. How far away/what lens? Tripod or are you just very, very good at holding still? Impressed!

Do all catties have ocelli?

Stuart said...

>How far away/what lens?

Lens is the Canon 60 mm dedicated macro lens, effective 96mm, due to small sensor multiplication factor. I'd say I was about maybe 3" away.

>Tripod or are you just very, very good at holding still?

Hand-held, shooting at exposure priority of 1/160th to avoid handshake. This usually results in wide open aperture in our light, even at ISO 400, so DOF is around 1mm.

>Do all catties have ocelli?

I've seen various Pug moth larvae with 5 dark ones, and many Sawfly larvae have a single. Many don't have obvious ones, but they might just be the same colour as the rest of the head/eye, so not as obvious.