p. 34-6 “The Six-spot Burnet is Britain’s most widespread burnet moth … Their bodies are packed with poisons that deter even the hungriest of predators. These poisons are accumulated by the caterpillars… munch on leaves of trefoils, they not only get the essential nutrients for growing, they also swallow the chemicals, in this case cyanides, which the plant produces to protect itself. The caterpillars themselves have evolved ways to deal with the plant’s poisons… cunningly store the dangerous chemicals in small pounches just under the skin. This prevents the toxins from interfering with their own body functioning and also allows them to be exuded through the skin as foul-tasting droplets for any predator follish enough to investigate too closely… As adults, females use cyanides as part of their alluring perfume to help attract males, and mating males transfer varying amounts to the female in little packages with their sperm. A toxic male is the most attractive and desirable.”
p. 54 “In 29021, Butterfly Conservation estimated that the work undertaken by volunteers to protect both butterflies and moths, would cost £18 million if valued commercially.”
p. 76 Family of micromoths known as Tineidae. … most feed on organic waste… recycling nutrients back into the environment. Some… specialise in digesting the protein found in animal hair, skin, feathers, claws and horns. As they nibble, they slowly do their bit to break the tough material down … Two species have become rather well know… The Webbing Clothes Moth and the Case-making Clothes Moth are problem pests worldwide… in the dark corners of warm houses they will happily breed all year round…. each female will lay about 50 tiny eggs on suitable substrates, which in turn hatch into the fabric-destroying caterpillers.”
p. 86 Herald (Scoliopteryn libatrix) emerging … “a race against time for the moth, for if the wings are not given the space they need, they might dry in a stunted or twisted position and effective flight is never realised”
p. 88 Maria Sibylla Merian, born in Frankfut in 1647 to a family of artists and printmakers … in 1679 she published her first book on caterpillars… showing the real-life relationship between insects and plants was groundbreaking. The concept of ecology, the interactions between animals, plants and the environment now so fundamental to our understanding of the natural world, was barely considered at the time.”
p. 90 “the book for which she would later receive most acclaium. Metamorphosis Insectorum was publsihed in 1705 with 60 large copper-plate engravings illustrating the stages of development of many different insects arranged around the plants she had found them on…. Her work was circulated, discussed and admired by the scientific elite of the Royal Society of London. Tsar Peter the Great acquired a large collection of her work. Later George III bought a first edition of her Surinam book for the Royal Collection. Carl Linnaeus used her illustrations to help him describe species of plants and animals. At least nine animals now bear her name. Sadly, after her death some of her findings were disputed. Inaccurate copies of her books had been made and when these errors were spotted her work became widely criticised. Genuine observations such as a large spider capturing a bird were dismissed as fanciful female imagination. Only 150 years later, when the explorer Henry Bates proved her bird-eating spider was accurate, was the record finally set straight; but her books and their legacy were soon forgotten.”
p. 101 In most moth species it is the female that releases a sex pheronome, a behaviour referred to as ‘calling’, when she is ready to mate… Males are usually better endowed than females in the antennal department… a greater surface area and therefore more space for special scent receptors.”
p. 102 “There are reports of some species attracting a suitor from over 10 km away”
p. 113 “The very first moths, flying around 200 million years ago, had chewing moutparts and probably fed on fern spores and pollen from primitive conifers in their prehistoric swampland homes. To keep hydrated they might have sipped on dew .. and it is thought this gradiually led to the development of more specialised sucking moutnparts to better deal with these food sources. Once flowering plants made an appearance… things started to change more rapidly… There are still tiny moths that eat fern spores and pollen grains, using a special cavity in the mouth to process these granular foostuffs, But most others have moved on, with the evolution of a long tubular moutnpart called the proboscis”
p. 135 “Moths with ears were flying around their prehistoric worlds at least 28 million years before echolocating bats were on the scene … must once have been used for something other than bat avoidance, probably to hear other approaching predators but perhaps also for communicating with each other”.
p. 144 “Parasitoids… are a crucial part of ecosystems and have an important role in regulating the size of moth populations without eliminating them… reghular fluctuation of moth numbers over the course of years, tracked by a fluctuation in abundance of its parasitoids.”
p. 170 “migrating moths are naive; they’ve never done the journey before and will never do it again… they rely entirely on instinct to know when and where to go. Environmental cues of temperature, other weather patterns and day length interact with the moths’ genetics to make this work.”
p. 185 The most extreme cold conditions, as low as minus 70C, are endured by the Arctic Wolly Bear moth… most northerly breeding species of moth, eking out a remarkable life in the icy realms of Canada and Greenland… termperatures only become warm enough for activity on sunny afternoons in midsummer, so it takes on average seven years, a severely punctuated seven years, for the caterpillar to complete its development.”
p. 199 Alice Blanche Balfour (1850-1936) grew up with a love of natural history… her most significant finds happened during her 60s and 70s… bequathed her impressive collection of pinned specimens, notebooks and equipment to the National Museum of Scotland.”
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