{"id":6217,"date":"2025-06-30T13:43:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T13:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/?p=6217"},"modified":"2025-07-11T10:33:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T10:33:54","slug":"cinnabar-in-my-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/2025\/06\/30\/cinnabar-in-my-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"Cinnabar in my garden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"\">A patch of my rewilded garden has some ragwort plants on which I noticed today some cinnabar moth caterpillars feeding. The bold yellow and black stripes are a survival strategy. Cinnabar moth caterpillars use <strong>aposematic coloration<\/strong>, which is nature\u2019s way of saying \u201cdo not eat me\u201d in high-contrast colours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabar-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6218\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabar-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabar-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabar-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabar-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabar.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">These caterpillars feed almost exclusively on ragwort, a plant that contains toxic alkaloids. They store those toxins in their bodies, making them poisonous or at least extremely unpleasant to predators like birds. The stripes act as a visual warning, helping predators remember to steer clear after an unfortunate nibble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Cinnabar is another name for mercury sulphide, which has a brick red colour like the colour of the moth (see below). Perhaps I&#8217;ll get to see some later in the summer. We should appreciate moths as much as butterflies. Bob Moore<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"627\" height=\"431\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabarmoth.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabarmoth.jpg 627w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/cinnabarmoth-300x206.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 627px) 100vw, 627px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><em>Tyria jacobaeae<\/em> = the moth; <em>Senecio jacobaea<\/em> = ragwort; jacobaea comes from the traditional name for the plant: St James-wort<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/DSC_0294-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6230\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/DSC_0294-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/DSC_0294-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/DSC_0294-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/DSC_0294-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/159\/sites\/445\/2025\/06\/DSC_0294.jpg 1295w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A patch of my rewilded garden has some ragwort plants on which I noticed today some cinnabar moth caterpillars feeding. The bold yellow and black stripes are a survival strategy. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":537,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tl"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6217"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6231,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217\/revisions\/6231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/landscapearchitecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}