New Naturalist: Moths by Michael Majerus, HarperCollins, £19.99, ISBN 0002201429; Butterflies of Europe* by Tom Tolman and Richard Lewington, $26.95, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691090742
IT’S just not fair, says ecologist Michael Majerus, that butterflies evoke delicacy and beauty, while moths are linked to death and decay. To say something is “moth-eaten” is disparaging, and even Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount warned against storing up treasures on Earth “where moth and rust doth corrupt”.
Moths have been unjustly pilloried, says Majerus, an ecological geneticist at the University of Cambridge. In reality, these insects can be just as colourful…
