Old Lady
This moth is massive. Much bigger than typical garden moths and easily as large as an Oak Eggar. It flew into the house while I was setting up my Badger camera and it looked and sounded like a small drone moving slowly and methodically through the house, scanning each room. But what a curious name; Old Lady. Moses Harris in the Aurelian (1766) called it the Grave Brocade, and there are a number of moths called Brocade that resemble the rich fabric of the same name. This moth resembles the black outfit worn by Queen Victoria when she was in mourning, though the name Grave Brocade was first used 200 years earlier. The name Old Lady is an extension of this funereal idea as widows wearing sombre colours were usually old. Though the Dutch call this moth the Black Orphan (Zwart Weeskind). Its scientific name is beautifully alliterative; Mormo maura. Mormo was a mythical creature of Ancient Greece that would bite misbehaving children. Maura is an inhabitant of Mauritania, a Moor, like Shakespeare's Othello. But it wasn't named maura for its dark colouration as Linnaeus gave Mauritania as the type locality. In Britain it is not especially numerous but occurs throughout Britain, petering out in the north.
Old Lady
This moth is massive. Much bigger than typical garden moths and easily as large as an Oak Eggar. It flew into the house while I was setting up my Badger camera and it looked and sounded like a small drone moving slowly and methodically through the house, scanning each room. But what a curious name; Old Lady. Moses Harris in the Aurelian (1766) called it the Grave Brocade, and there are a number of moths called Brocade that resemble the rich fabric of the same name. This moth resembles the black outfit worn by Queen Victoria when she was in mourning, though the name Grave Brocade was first used 200 years earlier. The name Old Lady is an extension of this funereal idea as widows wearing sombre colours were usually old. Though the Dutch call this moth the Black Orphan (Zwart Weeskind). Its scientific name is beautifully alliterative; Mormo maura. Mormo was a mythical creature of Ancient Greece that would bite misbehaving children. Maura is an inhabitant of Mauritania, a Moor, like Shakespeare's Othello. But it wasn't named maura for its dark colouration as Linnaeus gave Mauritania as the type locality. In Britain it is not especially numerous but occurs throughout Britain, petering out in the north.