Today, appropriately for 1 September, the tiny micromoth Fomoria septembrella, the johnswort pigmy, emerged from a leaf mine that I collected in The Waste on 19 August from the square-stalked St. John’s-wort, Hypericum tetrapterum.
Though only about 2.5 mm long, it was a beautiful, wonderfully wrought creature with brown, silver-marked wings folded over its back and a cap of bright orange scales on its head.
After I had taken some pictures (not easy), I let it go by the still-flowering hypericums in Emthree and it took to the wing like a shard of brown glass.
I suppose there are some advantages to being as small as this. You can spend much of your life inside an edible leaf and are too little to be readily visible, or appetising to a wide range of predators.
Anyway, fare well tiny friend.
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