Upon my return from a weekend in the bay area, I: 1st) check on the chickens, bringing them some aging broccoli, 2) water the garden, 3) while watering a tomato plant see something orange and SMALL and blurry fuzzing around the basil.
Believe it or not, this teensy thing, probably around a centimeter across (roughly) actually landed, eventually, in a place where I could take a photo.
So, hoping someone knowledgeable about such things might care to hazard a guess and share it with us? Did NOT get the head, but pretty good view of the wings and much of one of the antennae.
So, we know it's small, colorful, beautiful, has a long, thin antenna (hmm, that's not a SUPER tiny butterfly, is it?), and really really loves basil blossoms. =) And is out and about this time of year (as in tonight).
Oh, and the bottom fringe of scales is a tan color, but it's reflecting in a fancy, shimmery way here so harder to discern the color than in other frames.
I swear I've never seen this before. Too cool!
biobabbler
P.S. A few shots from San Francisco's Ferry Building Farmer's Market tomorrow, if I can get my my watermark web site to work (say that 5 times fast). TOTAL color pig-out.
It looks like Pyrausta rubricalis (Crambidae) - the variable reddish pyrausta moth. And believe it or not, this is a big "tiny" moth! Nice shot!
ReplyDeleteYAY (I hoped you'd comment). Thanks! That's amazing that this is NOT tiny. It was a little orange-red fuzz-blur. Those moths must get SUPER small. Thanks again! =)
ReplyDelete