CLOSED: Which moth?

This tiny moth was on my watering can. Another smaller wingless bug walked across to it from a distance, had a look and walked away.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Another angle

I'd say it's the adult of one of the sod web worm species. I have a few paler versions in my lawn, which I think are the bluegrass sod web worm. Try the genus Parapediasia and see if you can find a match.

Thanks Todd, will do that. I was wondering if the other wingless bug was the male, as some are much smaller and without wings. They both look to have a similar black head, and a gold colour.

I've found something which is close, in the Incurvariidae family.

Nemophora cupriacella, the larvae feed on scabious, and I do have a perennial one. The colour isn't quite right but everything else is very similar.

http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=894

edited for spelling of Incurvariidae which I saw with an 'n' instead of 'd', but looks to be a 'd'.




This message was edited Aug 6, 2006 8:58 PM

This message was edited Aug 6, 2006 9:17 PM

Nemophora metallica does give a description of wings a 'relatively plain bronzy sheen', this fits but pics I see possibly taken with a flash don't quite match.

The male has very long antennae, female shorter.

http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=147

There looks to be a few of them!

http://www.lepiforum.de/cgi-bin/lepiwiki.pl?Fotouebersicht_Adelinae





This message was edited Aug 6, 2006 9:43 PM

I had those in Rochester, NY many years ago. Interesting shape, but I don't' remember if they did any harm.


Hap

Hi Hap, more importantly, did you know the name?

I'm joking of course! Did you have Scabious or Knautia?

There are so many tiny colourful moths around this year, it must be the heat. Not as easy to ID as butterflies!

I don't remember, wallaby....too many year ago.


Thinking.....................any one remember Leaf Hoppers? That seems to come back to me. Why I don't know.

Hap

Wallaby1, I'm not sure if your moth is in that genus. Your's certainly didn't look to have the long antennae associated with that family but perhaps it just wasn't visible in your picture.

Todd, I did a search for Parapediasia and came across a Moth photographers site. I looked at a few of the 'next' photos and there was one that had that 'curved' shaped in the Incurvariidae family.

I couldn't find much at all in the other Family, so did a search for Incurvariidae, taking me to the UKMoth site, where there was a page of thumbnails. I followed the Incurvariidae, then Incurvariinae and Adelinae link, finding this under Adelinae.

http://ukmoths.org.uk/thumbnail.php?mode=fam&fam=Incurvariidae

It's the shape that leads me there, but I could easily be wrong! The males antennae are 3 times as long as the forewing, but the females are about half of that. I can see quite long antennae, so it could be a female of this type. They are pale so not easily seen.

There are some on the lepiforum.de link without pics, the antennae and legs on the one's I'm seeing look darker than mine, which are a creamy gold colour.

Those little moths are Sooooo difficult. personally, I give you an A for effort...I don't think I'd bother with the little brown ones!

Oh well Todd that is kind of you! I wouldn't expect anything less!

But it is such a pretty little 'not brown but metallic bronze with gold legs' one.

There is a lack of information on moths, I don't wonder why............