Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Guess what – last week I found my first gorgeous Tineola bisselliella moths of the season.  A pretty yellow-brown, tiny moth with an orange hairdo. I remember this critter from the Netherlands all those years ago, and it has reached New Zealand not terribly long ago, as far as I can see.   This cosmopolitan moth is becoming more and more common in the Christchurch region. Although it’s spreading to a few New Zealand Centres: Wellington, Napier and who knows where else.  This attractive moth has a very descriptive vernacular name: Webbing Clothes Moth.   Its larvae (also known as caterpillars) chew on woollen materials, as well as taxidermied skins and feathers.   From now on they’ll be on the wing at my place, laying eggs in our woollen rugs and woollen carpets, chewing holes in all those natural products that keep us warm.   It really hacks me off if I find them in my taxidermied pheasant or kiwi. They also destroy feathers!   But when Julie finds evidence in her fancy clo