Latreille’s Latin is a Noctuid moth found in most parts of Europe, Asia and in Africa, from Egypt to South Africa.The tend to live on rocky limestone slopes with deciduous woodland. So why then was this small moth in our apartment perched on my trousers? I think it may have been hiding on my mandolin case which I pulled out to pluck at for our baby son.
It was a very small moth, measuring from 12-14mm only, as you can see from the pictures since those threads are my jeans and gvive an idea of scale. But what I really like about this moth are its own trousers. The upper parts of its legs really are quite hairy and particularly the middle ones as you can see in the above photo. They look like big knee length bermuda shorts.
You can see from this frontal shot that the forelegs are less hairy, but it still sports a nice pair of foreleg hairy sports shorts.
For such a small moth, and therefore would go quite unnoticed by many, wasn’t it worth a closer look to see those legs?
Contact Oretani Wildlife for birding and wildlife tours in central Spain and exciting moth nights.
