MY WILD LIFE

I discovered moths on family camping holidays. I was 11 years old when I went to a moth-trapping event in Kelling Heath, Norfolk, and it was just magical. One minute they weren’t there then suddenly they were! That sense of wonder has stayed with me.

Why do moths ma er?

Moths and their caterpillars are essential food for frogs, bats and garden birds like robins that need moth caterpillars to feed their young. Moths are pollinators too, helping wild flowers set seed and expand their range.

Where are you moth-trapping?

Once a month I take my moth trap onto an LRWT nature reserve. I get there just before dusk, set it up then se le down for a few hours. Moths spend the first hour of the evening feeding and then I switch the lights on. Some are dainty and delicate, others yo-yo up and down, while some are powerful and fast. I love just si ing there watching them flying around.

Volunteer Finn Miskin-Young loves to switch on his moth trap lights and settle down to watch the night yers arrive. Wendy Tobitt discovers why Finn also loves talking about moths.

We have many different habitats in Leicestershire and Rutland, which support hundreds of species. From my home I go east for moths of ancient woodlands and calcareous grasslands, and west for moths of the Charnwood Forest heath habitats.

Do you need special kit?

I bought a ‘beginners’ moth trap for my garden and use it on the reserves too. Special lights a ract the moths in, which then rest inside suspended cardboard egg boxes. Some moths go into the trap, some stay outside on the grass, but every moth is recorded. All the moths are released unharmed.

Is there a scientific reason for trapping moths?

Moths are not the picture-postcard species of the natural world, but they do have an important role in the ecosystem. They are an indicator species responding to climate change; some that were only seen in the south are now recorded in the Midlands and further north. Moths like The Vestal and Bordered Straw that migrate from continental Europe, and even north Africa, are expanding their range too.

Bu erfly Conservation holds the records of more than 2,500 moth species in their National Moth Recording Scheme. NatureSpot and the Leicestershire Moth Group submit their sightings to this scheme. There aren’t many branches of science that have this breadth of scientific research. Recording moths is important citizen science that anyone can do – you don’t have to be an expert.

How do you fit in moth trapping with work?

Currently I’m working in retail, where the shi system gives me time to volunteer and do regular moth trapping. I get a lot of satisfaction from opportunities with LRWT to engage with people and watch them be amazed by the magic of moths.

I’d like to find work where I’m using my Environmental Science degree. Just now I’ve got the chance to gain more experience of practical conservation activities where I’m learning from staff and other volunteers who are so knowledgeable.

How can people start mothing?

Come along to a public moth trapping event (which I wish there were more of!) and see the magic of moths for yourself. I was thrilled to be inside the amazing Moth Hotel at the Timber Festival last year and talking to everyone who came along. I love talking to people who think moths are a novelty.

However, you can just put a light on outside and watch them fly around it. Moths love sugary, sweet things like ro ing fruit and berries, so leaving those in the garden will also a ract them.

How do you know what they are?

There are websites such as ‘What’s Flying Tonight’ where you can enter your postcode and see which moths are likely to be flying in your area. And as soon as you post a photo of a moth on social media, there’s someone who can identify it for you.

Identifying: Brush up on your ID skills and know which moth species might be on the wing in your area. The What’s Flying Tonight? website can help you find out. Get started at butter y-conservation.org/ moths/whats- ying-tonight Trapping: Learn more about where and how to trap moths with the NHBS Guide to Moth Trapping: nhbs.com/blog/moth-trapping Lover’s Knot and Mother Shipton. Some

Victorian naturalists gave unusual names to moths such as Vapourer, True Lover’s Knot and Mother Shipton. Some of them are really descriptive, like the

Contact us if you or someone you know could feature in a future issue of Wild. We’re looking for inspiring stories from people like you! Email info@lrwt.org.uk

Elbow-striped Grass-veneer. You don’t get these sorts of names in other fields of ecology!

Can we see moths in winter?

Yes, there are species that only fly in winter. The Chestnut, a small brown moth, is o en the first one I spot in January because it flies through the winter on warmer evenings. The Quakers are really exciting because they’re the first moths of the spring season. Then I look out for Pale Brindled Beauty and Do ed Border.

Do you have a favourite moth?

Merveille du Jour is my favourite, with its pre y mint-green mo led wings. It’s like finding a jewel when I open the trap in the morning and see one.

Insects have an incredible trick for surviving the harsh weather of winter, as entomologist Dr Ross Piper reveals.

Human ingenuity and technology have enabled us to thrive in every corner of the globe, from the chilly polar regions to the sweltering tropics and everywhere in between. Insects might lack our technology, but this hasn’t limited their own ability to colonise and thrive in just about every terrestrial and freshwater habitat there is.

How are these animals able to survive extremes of temperature: the cold winters of temperate locations and periods of intense heat and drought? These six-legged marvels have evolved a number of ways of dealing with extremes, from waxy exoskeletons that minimise water loss to behaviours such as migration. However, they also have an ability that makes them more-or-less immune to the vagaries of the environment. It is known as diapause. This phenomenon is easily overlooked and is as remarkable as it is subtle; a period of seeming calm and inactivity that belies extreme changes at the cellular level.

In response to challenging environmental conditions, insects can stall their development, effectively pressing the pause bu on until conditions improve. The diapausing animal is still alive, but its cellular machinery shi s from cells dividing and organs developing to a state of ‘tick-over’ and maintenance. With that said, some diapausing insects may even remain active, but they feed less and their reproductive development will be slowed or halted.

How does this differ from the hibernation we see in mammals? In hibernation, metabolism slows and body temperature drops, but in essence, it is a very deep sleep. In contrast, diapause is a much more extreme form of inactivity, as the life of an insect in this state is effectively ‘paused’.

In a deep state of diapause, the insect can’t respond to danger and flee from predators, but usually diapause takes place in the soil, behind flaking bark, deep within a plant stem or in some similar sheltered location, offering a degree of protection from these external threats. If you go out searching for insects in the depths of winter, it’s not difficult to find lots of examples of diapause. You might discover beetles, wasps and lots more besides under the bark of a dead tree, a whole community of diapausing species in a grassy tussock, or eggs and myriad larvae in the upper parts of the cold soil.

Across the vast diversity of insect life, diapause is extremely common; however, for any given insect species the phenomenon only typically occurs in a single stage of the life cycle. O en, diapause happens in the immature stages of the life cycle – the eggs or the larvae – but it can also occur in the pupae as well as the adults. Take, for example, the peacock bu erflies you might find in your garden shed in the depths of winter. These are in diapause and in really cold snaps you can even see ice on them. Shu ing down for the colder months, the bodies of these diapausing bu erflies will undergo some radical changes, such as the production of anti-freeze chemicals and the shrinkage of their flight muscles, which will grow back to normal size as diapause comes to an end.

How is this strange state triggered? It’s not as though a jaded insect suddenly decides one day that it needs a long rest. The actual triggers are environmental and rather subtle. In insects that need to survive the winter, it is falling temperatures and shorter day length that trigger the cellular changes needed for diapause. For example, blowfly maggots frantically feeding on a carcass in autumn will respond to the decreasing day length and falling temperatures by guzzling the decaying ma er they need, before crawling out of the carcass and burrowing into the soil. Normally, the maggots would pupate straight away, but the physiological response to the shortening days and lower temperatures is stalled development, so the maggots don’t pupate until the following spring. The ra of changes that occur inside the body of the diapausing insect can include the production of compounds and proteins that protect delicate cellular structures from the ravages of extreme temperatures.

Dr Ross Piper is an entomologist, ecologist, author and presenter. His pursuit of insects, especially beetles, has taken him around the world.

In some insects, ight muscles get smaller at the onset of diapause and then increase in size again towards the end.

With its life on pause, a diapausing insect is capable of some extremely impressive feats of survival.

Take the large copper bu erfly (which was once found in the UK but is now sadly extinct here); the caterpillars of this fenland species can handle being completely submerged in fresh or brackish water for 28 days with no impact on survival. They can go on for much longer too, at least 84 days, but beyond 28 days fewer of them make it through the ordeal. This underscores just how li le metabolism is going on in the diapausing insect; it must be using a vanishingly small amount of oxygen to survive underwater for such a long period of time.

Perhaps the most nefarious exhibition of diapause is in parasitoid wasps and flies. The female parasitoid will deposit her eggs, either singly or en masse, into or onto the unfortunate host. Depending on the species, the development of the eggs or young parasitoid larvae will be stalled until the host becomes acceptably plump and ripe for being devoured. As well as the normal triggers of diapause, these parasitoids may be able to pause their development by detecting levels of certain hormones in the host that indicate when development should be stalled and when it should be kickstarted.

The active larva of the remarkable, albeit ghoulish small-headed flies seek out their host, a spider, and tunnel into its body, o en through the leg joints. Once inside, the larva will make for the book lungs (the spider’s respiratory system) and there any further development will be halted, sometimes for many years, until the spider is sufficiently sized for the fly larva to grow and pupate. When the spider is pleasingly plump the larva jolts into action, swi ly consuming the innards of the doomed host. Sometimes - and adding insult to injury - the larva induces the host to spin a protective web that will shelter it during pupation.

This ability to slow or halt development is one of the cornerstones in the success of the insects. It allows them to sit out extreme conditions, sometimes for very long periods, waiting for the be er times to return.

The UK’s insect populations have suffered drastic declines, with far-reaching consequences for wildlife and people. Find out how you can help reverse these declines at wildlifetrusts.org/action-for-insects

A parasitoid wasp ( ) laid these eggs on a puss moth caterpillar. Development of the larvae within the eggs will be paused until after the host has spun a cocoon to pupate in.

North West Group