Seeds and moths

Seeds are the primary propagation method for many species of plants, and any species has a better chance of survival if its progeny can be distributed as widely as possible. Some seeds, e.g. Sycamore, Thistle and Dandelion, can fly. Others, such as Cleavers, Burdock or Herb Benedict have seeds which are furnished with hooks so that they can hitch a ride to their eventual germination spot. Other plants, however, have seeds which are distributed in more bizarre fashion.

The seeds of Meadowsweet are arranged in tightly coiled balls:

Meadowsweet seeds

When the seeds are mature, they drop off and bounce and roll away to their eventual destination.

The champions of subterfuge, though, are the seeds of Cow Parsley (and other Umbellifers, such as Hogweed). These resemble beetles:

Seeds of Cow Parsley

Notice that the similarity extends to antennae and even to 'eyes'.

When a fast-flying insect-eating bird spots these seeds, it is very easy to mistake them for a beetle at the top of a plant. As a result, many of these seeds are picked up and carried for some distance before the bird has noticed that its juicy beetle dinner is, in fact, a seed. If you're an insectivore, the last thing you want to eat is a seed, so these are very quickly dropped to germinate, but not before they have been carried some distance from the parent plant. Plants 1: Birds 0.

Moth identification continues to vex me, but I do think I'm beginning to make some headway.

This is the second specimen of Dotted Clay that I have seen:

Dotted Clay moth

These have a fairly short season, and the first one I saw was on 1st August 2009: exactly 3 years ago to the day. Dotted Clay uses a wide range of herbaceous foodplants, preferring Nettle and (in winter) Willows and other trees.

As usual, this Pug took a little time to identify:

Double-striped Pug

Larvae of the Double-striped Pug can be found on almost any flower. (Pug larvae tend to eat flowers, rather than leaves).

Moths

I think moths must be the most problematic group I've encountered.

First of all, there are over 2000 species to consider. Then, as I've mentioned before, colour is generally much less important than pattern. We also have to factor in the fact that some species are extremely variable. Then, finally, we have to consider wear.

If you have an unidentified specimen in front of you and a reference book (or more than one book!), then just trawling through the images won't help very much. It's a matter of finding something that:

a) looks quite similar
b) has a phenology that more or less matches.
c) is a reasonable size.
d) has plant dependencies that match the location where the specimen is found.

Then you need to read the species accounts for the candidates, and see which of the critical separating characteristics are present. References to 'similar species' should also be consulted.

That should lead to an identification in perhaps 90-95% of specimens. The remainder might be too worn to sustain an identification, but we also need to then consider aberrations.

The following specimen has been identified (not by me!) to be Dotted Clay - Xestia baja.


The species account says: "The most conspicuous diagnostic markings are the two small, sharp black dots just below the leading edge, close to tip of forewing." Sadly, mine has only one "sharp black dot", and one blurred one. So when all else fails, we need to invoke Dunlops "fourth law of moth identification". Which goes something like this: "When a moth fails to satisfy the basic diagnostic markings of all species, we need to add in missing features one at a time to see if they lead us to an identification, as long as they don't conflict with the diagnostic markings of any other species." Which means that in order to identify all specimens satisfactorily, we need to know what all the rest look like, or might look like.

This might take some time.