Pine Beauty Moth Eggs
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 eggs laid along a needle of a Lodgepole pine. If remembered correctly the colour changed from the cream white as shown to a darker mauve tint when approaching time for hatching.
At this time and later there was quite a Forest Research effort into understanding the population dynamics of the moth and in predicting when it would reach tree crop destruction levels in various forests throughout the northern half of Scotland. John Stoakley based at the Forestry Commission Alice Holt Research Station became the acknowledged expert on the insect and its control. From about 1977 he and a team used to set up base at the former forest worker houses at Achany, Lairg from about March through to the end of June and perhaps later. From there they continually monitored the hot spots all over north Scotland and when the caterpillar populations looked as though they could be very damaging to forests they co-ordinated the setting up of and secured permissions for the spraying operations.
Groups: Animal, Insect, Plant and Fungal species in forestry, George Dey Forestry Collection