Musings

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Musk Thistle



A thistle is not always just a thistle; it might be a musk thistle! Carduus nutans is a real stonker. There's something extravagantly thistley about it. When you peer closely you can see it's covered in candy-floss. When you peer even more closely you'll see it's drawn its own entomological crowd. In this case a pretty picture-wing fly. Rather sadly this cannot be identified to species level without collection and dismemberment, and I only took photos. However it's either the common Urophilus jaceana or the unusual and rather special U. solstitialis. We shall never know!






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