Proserpina in the underworld

Yesterday I was harvesting shallots in the potager when a creature surged out of the freshly-broken ground in front of me. My first thought was that I had disturbed some kind of snake, with a pointed snout and a grey, apparently scaly, back. Any small predator such as a weasel would back off immediately when confronted by this display. Then the tail emerged revealing the animal to be a chubby critter just over two inches long, rather short for a snake, although at full stretch in "attack" mode it was a good three inches! Tim came over hastily from mowing and pronounced it to be a hawkmoth caterpillar, but not one he recognised. It has a single eye spot in the middle of its tail, tiny spots of blue and red in black rings on its sides, and lacks a tail spike.

Actually it's rather cute!

Shown against Tim's finger gives a scale to the beasty!

Consultation of the "oracle" (Michael Chinery) identified it as proserpinus proserpina, a species lacking an English common name but whose French name, Sphinx de l'épilobe, translates as the willowherb hawk moth. It also feeds on evening primrose and purple loosestrife, and has been identified as a pollinator of the greater butterfly orchid, platanthera chlorantha. The INPN web site informs us that this is a regulated species on the Red List of insect species for France. The Inventaire National du Patrimoine Naturel only has three records for Indre-et-Loire. Since its home had already been destroyed by accident, we placed it on a molehill in the meadow by some willowherb plants in the hope that it will be able to bury itself again if it so prefers, with its food species nearby but out of reach of large bipeds with gardening forks.

Back on the ground, "scales" showing up nicely.

The scientific name, considering that the caterpillar came out from under the ground, is interesting in itself. Proserpina (Persephone in Greek myth) was the daughter of the Roman goddess Ceres (the Greek Demeter), who was the Earth Mother and "the protectrice of agriculture, and of all the fruits of the earth". Proserpina was sleeping in a flowery meadow when Hades, the god of the underworld, saw her, fell madly in love and carried her off. Ceres pined for her and winter came into the world. Proserpina pined for her mother and her flowers, and generally made life hell for Hades. Eventually husband and mother came to an agreement: Proserpina would spend six months of the year with Hades and six months with Ceres. Winter ended, spring came and the cycle of the seasons began.

Another side view... showing the tail end.

The catterpillar getting an advanced look at what it will become.

Once bitten...

After a hectic weekend with a lot of wildlife about I am going to write about.... CLEGS!
Horseflies to some... family Tabanidae to others.... these are large insects with a particularly nasty bite [to me anyway].
I was first bitten by one in 1970 and my whole arm came up like a well stuffed sausage so, whenever they are about, I declare war.
That said, I should only kill half of them as the males tend to be vegetarian [nectar feeders].... but I'm not going to stop and ask!

When I was bitten in '70, it was able to get through an ex-US Army jacket and my workshirt [but that was probably nothing compared to a horses hide!], all four layers quite tight fitting [the army jacket was three layers thick] so if they are about I now tend to wear very loose fitting clothing which reduces the contact points... except for exposed skin.
To me the most fascinating thing about the horsefly group are the eyes... the one shown here has very clear colouring on the eyes... this varies between species. [You will notice from the eyes that this one supports Jamaica and is wearing wrap-around sunglasses!] The colour also fades away after death [I can vouch for this!!]

What allowed me to get this close was the fact that these were feeding on the bonnet of the '56 2CV. They were probably males as they seemed to be drinking the dried drips of aphid sap on the bonnet [the car was parked under our lime].
Their feeding method was to use the front feet in a sweeping motion across the surface towards their head, covering in the process about a centimetre circle.
They would then extend their proboscis and work over the small patch immediately under their head.
That completed, they moved forward about a centimetre dabbing the proboscis on the bonnet as they went.
They then stopped and repeated the 'harvesting' action.
They moved up and down the bonnet in straight lines.... turning and shuffling sideways to do a return sweep.

According to Chinery [Collins; Insects of Britain and Western Europe 1986] about 160 species occur in Europe.... the one here is most likely to be Tabanus bromius which has a very simple eye pattern [although there are a number of similar species this is the commonest (Chinery)]. The actual Cleg Fly [Haematopota pluvialis] is much smaller and unlikely to be the one that got through my jacket.

27 July 2003 - Around the house and meadow

Again for the present this record is lists... but it is dated in the file for the 27th 
[at 13:19 we were between Amboise and Loches with the car 
[1956 Citroën AZC called Gytha] looking like this >>>

But she did look a bit more balanced with us both in her!!]

We were on our way down with the first load of 'stuff' for the house.

So... despite the date shown above from the notebook
I think that it was a page of accumulated records
[ the Jersey Tiger below was photographed on the 29th!]

Here's the list...

Birds:

• Crow
• Rooks [flock of 200+]
• Buzzard
• House Martin
• Turtle Dove
• Collared Dove
• Wood Pigeon
• Green [or Grey] Woodpecker
• Black Redstart
• Blackbird
• Starling
• Goldfinch
• Greenfinch
• White Wagtail
• Mallard
• Grey Heron

Butterflies:

• Painted Lady
• Red Admiral
• Scarce Swallowtail
• Comma
• Ass'ted Fritillaries
• Ass'ted Blues

Moths:

• Jersey Tiger >>>
• Hummingbird Hawkmoth
• Bee Hawkmoth

Other insects:

• Glow-Worm
• Praying Mantis [Religiose]

Spiders:

• Argiope bruennischi [the one that spins the marvelous stripy webs]
• House spiders [Teginaria gigantia?]