More peering into glass-topped cases is called for

Saturday saw the return of the British Entomological and Natural History Society (BENHS) Annual Exhibition. I’ve been before, many times.

For the last….what, 20 years?… the Annual Exhibition has been held at Imperial College, in South Kensington, but the hall hire there finally got too much, and this year it removed to the Premier Suite of the grandstand at Kempton Park Racecourse.

People and exhibits seemed a bit thinner on the ground than last year. It’s always difficult to compare when moving to a new venue. But those who were there got straight down to the important business of peering into glass-topped cases.

Here is a more or less random selection of snapshots. Next year, a return to Central London (Holborn) has been mooted. Watch this space.

: Two partial gynandromorphs of the orange-tip, most bizarre.

: It’s a dangerous business being an entomologist. A serious allergic reaction to oak processionary moth caterpillar hairs.

: One of Britain’s rarest beetles, just flew into a garden picnic party. Or was it attracted to pheromones on Peter’s shirt? That’s cheating.

: An interesting selection of punctuation marks. The Ptiliidae are a fascinating group, but not really very photogenic.

: A test using the add-on macro lens on the phone camera. Not bad. Syncopacma vinella, first UK record for 20 years, and quite pretty…for a moth.

: A fun item from Mark Sterling — largest and smallest moths from Hong Kong.

: President-elect Claudia Watts claimed the cat ate her homework. In fairness all it did was release the moths and play with them a bit until one fell into the washing up water.