Pine Beauty Moth and Pupa
The photograph is courtesy of the family of George Dey. George took many forestry photographs in his forestry career and many are now shown on this web site. Check under ‘Groups’ and George Dey Collection.
Close up view of a Pine Beauty (Panolis flammea) moth as it emerges from its pupae buried in the peat beneath the trees. A single pupa which has not yet hatched is beside the newly emerged moth.
In areas where it was suspected that populations were rising to damaging levels, teams of workers used to go to a range of preselected random locations within the site and dig down into the ground to find the pupae. The digging was carried out within small measured frames and the pupal count worked out on a number per square metre of plantation. If remembered correctly a figure of over 15 pupae per square metre indicated that the plantation had to be closely monitored when the eggs were being laid in the spring.
Groups: Animal, Insect, Plant and Fungal species in forestry, George Dey Forestry Collection