Following on from the previous post showing the Poplar Hawk-Moth Caterpillar (Laothoe populi), I am now showing some photos taken in the evening showing the Ultra-Violet fluorescence.
Although I am showing the photos as a side-by-side comparison the matching between the daylight flash image and the UV fluorescence is not perfect. This is because it is moving (and the gentle breeze is rustling the leaves. The caterpillar head is not always sharp as the caterpillar is constantly moving its head, sufficient to blur the image during the couple of seconds to do the exposure. Most of the images had to be discarded – this is the best of the bunch:
This is fascinating to see…