Let me start with a confession: I love moths. If your instant reaction to that statement is a shudder and expression of dislike (or worse), be assured that you’re not alone. It is the commonest response I get. But before you scroll on or turn the page, I hope you will give me a couple of minutes of your time to persuade you to change your mind. Moths are extremely important and beautiful creatures, and we should all love them.
Almost all of them, anyway. There’s a couple of tiny species that nibble holes in your jumpers and chew your carpets, and I’m not going to try to make you love those. Feel free to hate them with a vengeance, particularly as autumn draws in and you open your jumper drawer to find unwanted evidence of their labours. But Britain has about 2,500 other species of moths, and it would be unfair to let the clothes moths colour your perceptions of the other 99.9%. And the others really are special, in all sorts of ways.
First of all, moths are stunningly beautiful animals. Take the merveille du jour: a velvety plush of green, black and white, perfectly camouflaged to hide on a patch of lichen, but fabulous on any background. The puss moth is a thumb-sized swatch of ermine fur coat. The burnished brass looks a colourless blob when angled away from you, but turn it sideways and its metallic sheen is revealed, more gilded than its name implies. The elephant hawk-moth is candy-striped gold and bubblegum pink, and larger than most British butterflies.