Wed 28/08/2019

Yesterday’s common plume moths illustrate how difficult it can be to identify even a common species. The first one is quite hale and hearty, and relatively sturdy, with closed wingtips. It may not be easy to tell from the photos, but the second is way smaller and more wispy-looking, and the wing tis are splayed slightly. I submitted it to the Twitter fraternity though, and the consensus was that it is still a common plume rather than some more exotic species. Below is yet another pose from the ubiquitous common plume moth; this one holding itself in a shallow ‘Y’ shape.

Mostly though, today was about the very common little zebra jumping spider Salticus scenicus. I have taken a few shots of these with prey, but because they are so common, so small, and rarely stand still, I have no very good portrait photos of them. Today I tried to rectify this shortfall, only to realise that there is a remarkable amount af variation in their markings. The usual type is a faded dark-grey-on-light-grey stripe, but the fresher, better-marked specimens have a shiny black thorax and brown-on-white abdominal markings. Even the books describe them as black and white; rarely a mention of the brown variant – they are all the same species though.