Moth beaten?

Democracy Man suggested my last post, identifying some moths I'd found around the house with, it turned out, predictable names, implied I was getting a bit moth eaten. Actually that was the point - this whole identifying moths thing started last year when Mrs H asked if any of the moths we were finding around the house were the type that eat your clothes. So I checked. So far, they're not. These are the ones you don't want to find: firstly the case-bearing clothes moth, tinea pellionella:

and secondly the common clothes moth, tineola bisselliella:

Both are small, with a wingspan of 9-16mm and they are among the moth varieties that don't feed. All the damage is done by the caterpillars and the only purpose of the adult moths is to breed. The common clothes moth prefers scuttling to flying. Though generally associated with houses both types of moth can and do live in the "wild", sometimes being found in birds' or wasps' nests.

My first conclusion was that the attractive "butterfly-shaped" moths are a decoration rather than a problem: the ones you don't want are small and narrow, tucking their wings in at rest. The specimen I found that I was most suspicious of looked quite similar:

However I assuaged my nerves by identifying this small brown moth I found in the house as - surprise, surprise - a Brown House moth. Although superficially quite similar to the buggers above, it's quite a bit bigger, with wingspan 15 to 26mm. The caterpillars can live for up to two years (!) and they feed on detritus that accumulates behind skirting boards and other similar places. Charming - and all the skirtings only went on 3 years ago!

There have been some rather more attractive specimens, many still with predictable names. This one is called the Red Underwing:

Which might not seem appropriate until it flies:

As you can see you can't snap these guys very clearly in flight. For this reason I have identified many moths only after they have pegged it and they are decorating the floor. I let this one fly out, but this is what they look like if you can pin them down:

I know it's orange rather than red, but remember the word "orange" to describe colour only dates from the 16th century. There are also light and dark crimson underwing species.

I also found a common swift (though it wasn't very swift by the time I found it):

Mrs H found a Common Plume, which tucks it's wings away to look like a glider:

She got quite excited as she initially thought it was a stick insect. And, outside the house in the garden (though admittedly on the door of my car) I found a Garden Carpet:

Identifying moths with certainty isn't always easy. The size of some adult species can vary greatly and, while the patterns are a good guide they can vary subtly, while colours can vary a lot too. So I have been beaten by several species, including this handsome specimen, which had paler hind wings but flew too quickly to be photographed:

However, we haven't seen a moth in Wales as bright as those we saw while walking along the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire, like the Five Spot Burnet, often found on such chalk downlands. Guess how many spots it has on each wing?

We were, of course, convinced it was a butterfly until we got back home and checked our wildlife guides. These days I would refer first to my new favourite webpage, the butterfly-conservation.org page titled "identify a moth". The site also answers that old question - what's the difference between a butterfly and a moth? No, nothing to do with colour, hairiness or time of day. Indeed their expert says:

"Unfortunately, there isn’t a straightforward answer – at least not one that most people find acceptable."

noting some subtle differences before going on to say:

"The real answer to the question and the answer that people find so troubling is that there isn’t really much of a difference at all. The fact that in English at least, society has different words and, indeed, very different attitudes to them is largely a cultural concept rather than a scientific one. All moths and butterflies belong to the group Lepidoptera, which is one of the great, mega-diverse insect Orders on the planet, comprising some 165,000 species worldwide of which only c.18,000 are butterflies. A similar situation exists in Britain where we have only about 60 butterfly species but over 2,500 recorded moths. So, clearly if we want to apply a common, English name to the Order Lepidoptera ‘moths’ is much more appropriate than ‘butterflies’."

I accept my current preoccupation is very sad. But maybe sadder still the new football season started today, which may change my focus for a while. Though it may not improve my humour.....

* The photos of the moths I didn't snap, including the clothes moths, are from https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/identify-a-moth