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Please excuse my ignorance but I found a caterpiller in my garden and I cannot identify it even after going through your website. It is green, about 4 inches long, 'eyes' at front, black spots along each side (6)and a hook on it's tail. Appeared very aggresive when approached. It has now gone into a coccoon. I think it is a Hawkmoth of some kind but as I said I know nothing about moths. I have a photo of it and could send if required.

Hello there,myself and a friend would really be grateful if you would tell
us how we can get some caterpillars identified as we have looked through
many lists but to no avail. Well we look forward to your kind reply if you have the time.Yours sincerely Micheal and Darren.

The website is very useful as it has a connection to butterfly conservation of which our family are members. We wanted to identify a moth that was in the house. I managed to take a photo of but couldn't find it in any of the books we have on moths but your website has now identified it as an adult dark Umber Philereme Transversata. The lighter of the two shown on the identity of uk moths.

I visited the site because my cat had caught a moth that I had never seen before. I took a photo, it had a red tipped nose and wings were black with yellow lines and red with black dots. I have hopefully identified it as a variety of garden tiger moth

Useful site. Just found the Elephant Hawk-month caterpillar in my garden! Apart from Rosebay Willow Herb what other food source for this, and the moth when it appears. When my daughter was younger we purchased caterpillars from a site (also done in school) with the intention of watching them change and letting fly the butterflies. Is this possible with moths and, if so, how is the best way to go about it. Regards Sue Jones

Superb! And most useful as we (finally!) started a survey to the Moths of Geneva (Switzerland) based on a 3 years scheme. Thanks for the fantastic work! Best regards, Maxime (ELPENOR Project).

Ian,
I've just found your wonderful site and spent a happy time trying identify a moth which turned up in my porch at the weekend. Success ! I think it is a Feathered Gothic. Not a particularly unusual moth I now realise, but what has really made my evening was comming across Langmaid's Yellow Underwing in your gallery. John Langmaid being a cousin of my mother's, known in our family as John the Moth ( for obvous reasons) to distinguish him from all the other Johns.
Also during my search of your photos I have decided that the caterpillars which eat my tomatoes are probably Bright Line Brown Eye. But I've only ever seen the caterpillars which seem to vary in colour, sometimes green and others more brown but similar markings.
Many thanks, I shall certainly return to this site when my Collin's pocket book fails.

Very good info on elephant hawk moth was worried about seeing catterpillar at this time of year, Do they pupate and come out next year or this? Ta Alex

Amazing useful, thanks guys. I recently found a larva in my garden and I was like WHAAAT! so I tried UK Butterflies first, and after much tomfoolery, my travels led me here, where I discovered it was a eagle moth. QUALITEEEEYYYY!!!!

I AM VISITING YOUR WEB SITE AS PETE EELES FROM UK BUTTERFLIES FORWARDED IT TO ME.
I LIVE IN CYPRUS AND I COULD NOT IDENTIFY A CERTAIN CATERPILLAR IN MY GARDEN, WHICH I THOUGHT WAS A BUTTERFLY LARVA.
I AM NOW AWARE THAT IT IS FROM THE HAWK MOTH. IT IS BRIGHT GREEN WITH A WHITE STRIPE DOWN THE BODY WITH BLUE EYES AND A YELLOW SPUR AT THE END LIKE A TAIL.
LAST YEAR WE HAD THE SAME AND I HAVE TAKEN PHOTOS OF BOTH THE LARVA AND THE MOTH, ALTHOUGH I DID NOT ASSOCIATE THE TWO. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO SEND YOU THEM TO VIEW IF YOU TELL ME HOW I CAN DO THIS.
JUDIE SHEARD

Superb site! Would it be possible to show say 20 spp of micros on a page at one view? Perhaps a genus or part?

The map of Rosy Marsh shows a square a long way north of Borth Bog rather than Borth Bog itself and nothing for Tregaron Bog.

You have an excellent site here, with a modern web 'feel' about it. I've and found this site perfect for final identification of the handful of moths I've been moved to find out a little more about. Being 'moth-ignorant', I'll begin with a search using a description of the chief colour(s). This is a bit hit and miss, but can yield a generic name like underwing, which I'll then type into the search giving me a fuller list to plough through until I find the photo which matches most closely the one on my phone. When the initial colour search doesn't seem to yield an answer I go off to another site and then come back with the generic name.
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about moths, except at night in the kitchen when they come piling in through the back door and batter themselves silly against all the fittings until they decide to land.
The first that moved me towards identification was a beautiful Lesser Magpie - I couldn't recall seeing such a pretty moth. I coudn't identify it initially because 'gold' (which was what the most striking colour seemed to be to me) didn't turn anything up.
Then came the Scalloped Oak which was easy, but tonight I've stumbled on one I believe I need your help with - 'orange' turned up underwing, which then turned up two candidates for a match on your site - Large Yellow and Lunar. Common sense would say the Large Yellow as it's aparently more common and being in the North West, the Lunar would seem most unlikely according to your narrative. However, My photo is most closely a match for the Lunar - even down to the shape of the darker dots on the main wings, the black dots near the tips and banding across the body between the underwings. I'll send the photo to you just as soon as I upload it. It'd be nice to think that a declining species was alive and well up here but either way it's a pretty moth, even if it is a bit mad - I swear it was trying to headbut its wat through our walls!

Hope you can help and...
Thanks for a great site,
Colin.

Top site

Brilliant search engine. Followed instruction of +white+black+orange and came up with the page showing The Magpie. 2 separate sightings on buttercup leaves in shade but close to blackcurrant bushes lost in jungle in west Wales, St Dogmaels SA43 3HF. Have spent last 10 days trawling google to identify tearing my hair out either with messages saying go away we are busy or their search engines rebuffing. Trawled all butterflies but there are thousands of moths. Decided one last go. Have made you my favourite search engine. Thank you so much. Looking forward to your caterpillar engine soon. Wonderful.
Kindest regards, shall drink your health;
Mrs Page

Just took my first photo of a moth and quickly found it on this site. This is a great site, easy to use and interesting to just browse. I know nothing about moths but this has wet my apetite. Thanks for the resource I have booked marked it as I am sure I will use it in the future. Incidentally it was a Blood-vein moth.

21 August 10: Just used your site to identify a Jersey Tiger, seen in our Streatham Hill, South London, garden this morning, earlier in the week and, we're now sure, last year. Previously have not been able to photograph it but succeeded today leading to its identification. Thank you for your excellent website.

I am new to \"mothing\" (i.e two weeks) but have built an efective \"skinner\" style trap (which involved me spending four hours in the cellar fiddeling with power drills, light bulbs and egg trays!) so far i have caught some interesting moths such as bloodviens,something that looked like a setaceous hebrew character and what was almost certainly a large yellow underwing which had crawled out of the trap but made a beeline for the privit hedge just as i was about to do the \"ye oldy jam jary and paper trick\"to catch him .
But now to my dilemma, I have found on two occasions a large, 35mm wing span, grey moth with antenni that look like two ferns perched on his head! none of your macro moths seem to look anthing like him (I have photos but dont know how to load them onto the site).....

email address above is different because I'm at work. Wonderful site. Looking at the larvae photos for yellow tail I'm slightly mystified by one shot which looks as though it might be of grey dagger. It's the one with several larvae which seems odd. Only a beginner so I'm probably up the pole. I think we have a grey dagger in the front garden on a rose. 20 mm when first spotted and now nearing 30 mm. Both stages apparently identical.

August 19th 2010. Found what appears to be well marked 'spotted sulphur' on a vine in Milford on sea garden, Hants. Tried to send photo but this rejected - your email address not same as website? The moth is very dramitic black and white. ?newly hatched - lots of bindweed in this garden!
Found UKmoths very user friendly. AEA.

Hello,
We are including an item on moths in this Friday's edition of \"Gardeners' World\" (20th August 2010) and wanted to add a link to your website from our 'factsheet' page. For this to happen I just need to check that you are a non-commercial operation?
I look forward to hearing back from you,
Russ

A wonderful resource, especially for a moth novice, like myself! I love the opportunity provided on this site to search for information about moths in different ways. I am using the keyword facility quite a lot at the moment. Thank you!

On 14th August 2010 while visiting my daughter's 6th floor flat in Greenwich SE3 I was very excited to find numerous Jersey Tiger Moths around the blooming clematis and sweet peas on her balcony. Many thanks for your website which enabled me to identify them.

I love your site, and am living in the Sutton,Surrey area when shopping I photographed a lovely specimen of a Jersey Tiger in Wallington resting on a shop window, unfortunately this is on my mobile which means if you would like it I would have to text it to you, we have an allotment on the site of an old dairy farm which is very rich in both butterflies and moths especially the micro-moths and it was nice to attempt to identify some of them we have at the last count 11 different species of butterflies and are also visited by either 5 or 6 spot burnets too, this could be because we have a fairly uncultivated strip beside us, and the back plot from us has been uncultivated this last year too, I grow some pot marigolds in my part of the plot with holy basil, and some mint (which escaped), and we have clumps of ice plant (sedum)in the front and back of the plot,as well ason my area, with a few rescue plants (which I can't all identify) as well as phlox, and at the front of our plot we have a buddleia which all probably serves to attract them as well as the holly which grows beside us surrounded by naturalised rasperry and loganberry brambles I am establishing a small wildlife area as we had two water-baths which were colonised by newts and other amphibians so where they are is a work-in progress I planted iceplants there to attract pollinators as it's behind where we planted fruit trees and I have started a rockery for sunbathing on too, my flowerbeds are bordered with old tree cuttings so provide sunning places too, at the moment though the mint is the most popular plant as it's still flowering I intend to plant more scented plants and probably keep the evening primrose which grows here like a weed, but plant some of it into the wildlife area to spread the feeding areas for the night flyers, hopefully not attracting those which will eat our fruitas we don't use pesticides and I don't like the idea of killing anything. Any ideas on discouraging fruit eaters are welcome though I don't mind but biting into someone elses young Yuk, and not too good for the young either

With some encouragement from another moth trapper, I've started looking at micros - instead of just throwing them away! Without your site, I think I would have quickly given up! I've dipped my toe in by checking through the invaluable pages of thumbnails, but do wonder why these show a mixture of adults and caterpillars when all adults would be more helpful. This comment is made with considerable hesitation as I suspect that to implement a change would mean even more work for you on this fantastic site, for which many thanks.

I found the site after watching a Hummingbird Hawk Moth feed on the flowers in our garden (Exeter, Devon) and searching to identify it online. Excellent site, most informative and well illustrated, which made my search relatively easy. Keep up the good work.

very helpful thank you in identifying the herald moth
found in garden on tayberrys in cramlington northumberland

good website. I love moths and have identified a few using this great site

Thanks to your very informative website I have identified a swallow-tailed moth currently sitting on my bathroom wall!

Hi,
Just been looking again at the caterpillar My husband found. I think it is actually a Privet Hawk-moth looking through your web site. Its been very interesting though finding out. Never paid so much attention to caterpillars!

Thanks Rachel.

Hi,
My husband, today, picked up a caterpillar in the garden (in Somerset uk) to bring in to show the children. I have it here and have been trying to identify it on the web. I think it is a 'sphinx drupiferarum' if that means anything to you. Are you interested in photos of caterpillars as well as moths?. It is green, has slashes of red/yellow, a big spike on its bottom, no hairs and is about 3 to 4 inches long about the size of my finger. Let me know, and if I am brave enough, I shall take a photo of it in the morning before I let it go - I don't think I will sleep tonight knowing its in the house!

Thanks Rachel