Maybe it’s because moths are usually out at night when the lighting isn’t the best (to say the least), but somehow I’ve always gotten it into my head that moths are the brown and boring ones, and butterflies are the pretty ones.
I’m happy to be learning that such an assumption is completely wrong.
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I mean, if you had asked me to identify this insect with vivid red and black wings, I probably would have defaulted to butterfly.
And I would have been wrong. This is a cinnabar moth.
It is possible to make an educated guess between moth and butterfly by sight, but it has nothing to do with the colors. Moths often have wider, furrier bodies and their wings lay flat when they are at rest.
These moths are named after the mineral cinnabar, which is an ore of mercury.
So yeah, it’s very toxic, but it’s also known for its bright red color. In the days before synthetic dyes and a modern understanding of toxicity, cinnabar was prized in jewellery and as a pigment.
These days, it’s still mined and heated to create liquid mercury, but we don’t use it as a pigment.
Cinnabar moths are far safer to appreciate up close.
As caterpillars, they have distinct orange and black stripes before metamorphosing into their black and red forms.
They are native to the British Isles.
Like most moths, it’s active at night, but is easily disturbed during the day.
Their food plant is the Common Ragwort and you can likely find a few napping in and around them in grassy areas.
Their pattern and color is very consistent between individual insects, but you will sometimes see a variation in the ratio of red to black, or even hints of yellow instead of red.
