We have used the book “A Guide to Australian Moths by Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards” to identify some of the moths on this site.

It has 214 pages and about 400 colour photos. Now there are over 20,000 species of moths in Australia, so this book only covers a small percentage of species. But it is handy for helping to identify the families. For each family it gives the characteristics of that family and some photos of representative species.

The moth was photographed on a post of our veranda. It has curious large eyes and a pointed “snout”.

Can anyone identify it?

location: Queensland, Australia.
Length: about 2cm

Pentax K100D digital SLR camera with Tamron SP AF90mm f2.8 1:1 macro lens

Added another batch of insect photos. Includes beetles, moths, butterflies, lacewings and some cool looking green lacewing larvae, grasshoppers. There is a couple of new reptile shots too, including an Asian House Gecko attacking a large Hawk Moth.

Also added a couple of domestic pest insect species like silverfish and good old dog fleas.

Most of these shots (except the fleas) were taken with  a Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro lens on a Pentax K100D digital camera.

Did you know that Praying Mantis eyses changed colour at night - I didn’t realise this until a couple of days ago. I photographed this Mantis at night on one of our potted fig plants, and the red eyes were very noticable.

Granny’s Cloak Moth is a large brownish grey moth. You often see them in dark buildings like in your garage, or shed or in outdoor dunnies. They look faily drab boring moths but in the light of the flash they have quite a nice pattern. Click on the pic for more info.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve added a few dozen new pages to the insect section of the site.

How do you tell the difference between sawfly larvae and moth/butterfly larvae.

From what I’ve read, one way to tell the difference between sawfly larvae and moth larvae is to count the legs. Sawfly larvae have 9 or more pairs of legs - 3 pairs of true legs at the front and 6 or more pairs of stumpy legs (called prolegs) at the back. Butterfly and moth caterpillars never have more than eight pairs of legs (3 pairs of true legs plus up to five pairs of prolegs).

Since I don’t have a “real” macro lens yet I’ve been making do with the lenses I have for close up photos. For very small insects I’m using an old 50mm Pentax M f1.7 lens - it does a fine job for small subjects that are not easily frightened away , but with a working distance of only a few centimetres from the lens to the subject it is hopeless for skittish insects like butterflies. This is where I’ve found my Samsung Schneider 50-200mm zoom comes in handy. (This is the same lens as the Pentax DA 50-200mm).