A few weeks ago, my sister and I attended a little family gathering of sorts. It was the two of us, and our only surviving aunt and uncle – Uncle Nick, my father's elder brother, and Aunt Lettie, their youngest sister. With us were Jaco, Aunt Lettie's middle son, and Annette, Uncle Nick's middle daughter. We were attended by Annette's husband Ben, the only one who wasn't blood family! But we got along great. We were at a little private game farm, with beautiful veld and lots of animals, of which we saw giraffes, sable antelopes, kudu, nyala, impala, waterbuck, warthogs, monkeys and squirrels. There was supposed to be a civet hanging around the house at night but we missed it . . . it might have been around later in the night as something ate some of the scraps we left out for it.

But the interesting bit for me was the insect life! At night an amazing array of moths came, attracted to the lights. Here are a few that hung around until the morning. Sadly I missed out the most impressive one – a huge relative of the Atlas Moth of Asia which is one of the largest of all moths. Ours is slightly smaller but still enormous for a moth, could cover your whole hand if it sat on it. I thought I had photographed it but when I uploaded all my shots, I realized I hadn't! But please enjoy this selection of other moths I did snap – testament to the richness of the subtropical vegetation on the farm. Every species of moth has caterpillars that feed on a specific species or group of plants; the adults are generalists, drinking nectar from a variety of flowers – though some moths, as adults, don't eat at all.

Willem

17.03.25 Front Page

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