Drinker

The other day I found a Drinker in the bank. That's a type of moth, not an alcoholic.

 

This is the Drinker in the bank.

I photographed it then helped it outside.

The Drinker Euthrix potatoria (Fr. la Buveuse) is a nocturnal moth in the fabulously teddy bearish and furry Eggar moth family Lasiocampidae.

 

This male Drinker is from my archive, photographed in Essex in 2002, in our garden.

The curious name, the same in French and English, comes from the caterpillar's reputation for sipping the morning dew off leaves.

 

Male Drinker on Simon's hand, from my archive.

The species is present in the whole of Europe and as far as Japan. In France it can be seen everywhere except some of the Mediterranean habitats. The adults are in flight from June to August. Eggs are laid on the host grass species and the caterpillars emerge, grow a bit, then overwinter. They finish their growth in the spring then spin a yellow coccoon attached to a grass stalk.

 

 From the archives.

They like damp grassland and forests, heaths, woodland clearings and roadsides. The caterpillars eat sedges Carex sp and grasses such as Cock's-foot Dactyla glomerata, Couch grass Elymus repens and Barren Brome Bromus sterilus.