The cup moth caterpillars have come in their millions and munched away, but it seems that they’ve gone to pursue their careers as moths, and the bush is responding accordingly. Green shoots are appearing everywhere, and things aren’t looking anywhere near as desolate as they were a month or so ago.
Fryers Forest, early December: new growth in the eucalypts is an indicator of the disappearance of the cup moth caterpillars.
White Everlasting Daisy (Chrysocephalum baxteri)
Slime Mould
Dunns Reef
Tall Greenhoods
Gnat Orchid
Blue Caladenia
Downy Grevillea (Grevillea alpina)
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge.
Coliban river upstream of the Gibbons bridge.
Sailors Gully ruin
Loddon River near Vaughan
Cortinarius archeri
Mycena subgalericulata
Cortinarius rotundisporus
Cortinarius cystidiocatenatus,
Ramaria sp.
Pink Heath
Mount Alexander
Mount Alexander
Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page
Click on image for info/order page
Re. the Cup Moth caterpillars (aka Bondi Trams, Chinese Junks, Doratifera oxleyi!) – I think a virus (not unusual where there’s an overpopulation of insects) has wiped them, or most of them, out, perhaps helped by a parasite. No adult moths at all have come to my MV light this year. Last year scores of them did. From 2000 – 2010 I only saw the odd one.