I've been up in the North Canterbury mountains this week, helping to teach our third-year undergraduate field ecology research course at #LincolnUniversityNZ. It was great fun, as always, helping students to carry out their first ecology research projects.

I'm collapsed back home, and very tired, after a week of long days outside then nights spent at the moth light. I've got a small mountain of photos to sort out and upload. That can wait until another day but here's a small taste.

#ecology #fieldwork #fieldTrip #nz #BoyleRiverOutdoorEducationCentre #Boyle

Oh, and here's the most elegant moth that flew into our moth lights this week.

It's the appropriately named Exquisite Olearia Owlet (*Meterana exquisita*) and we saw just one of them and it looks to be the first record of the species from North Canterbury.

Just look at it!

https://inaturalist.nz/observations/336654099

#BoyleRiverOutdoorEducationCentre #moth #iNaturalist #mothodon

@joncounts

What a chonky boi indeed!

@joncounts Oh man! "Mint-chocolate ice cream" comes to my mind.
@ax6761 Mmm! You’re right! The moth is perfectly camouflaged to disappear on lichens, and on mint-chocolate ice cream.

@joncounts 😍

I want to pet it

@bougiewonderland Indeed! We were talking around the moth light this week about how a lot of moths could easily be scaled up to make excellent plush toys for children.
I'm struck by how similarly it's markings appear adapted to green trees (which trees?) as compared to Feralia moths. Is that an ancestral shared trait, or an independently evolved feature in this case?
@joncounts that tussock grassland is stunning
@bencourtice It's a magical place all right.