Jersey Tigers: sign of the times
It started a couple of weeks ago, after we published a post about black and white butterflies. We began getting messages about an insect we hadn't featured - not a butterfly, but a big, day-flying moth with stripy almost-black-and-white wings, and which many people hadn't noticed much before.
Until just a few years ago, Jersey Tiger moths were scarce and localised in the UK. The name is a clue - Jersey in the Channel Islands (and a small part of Devon) being about as far north as you could reasonably expect to see one.
Many of our familiar insect species are vanishing, and overall numbers of insects continue to plummet. Some 59% fewer insect 'splats' were recorded on car registration plates last year in the UK compared to five years before, according to research by Buglife and Kent Wildlife Trust - that's approximately one in every five of our insects disappearing each year.
There are lots of factors at play here - from the water quality of our rivers and ponds to pesticide use and destruction of habitats. And one of the biggest appears to be the breakdown of our familiar climate, with wetter winters, drier summers and new heat extremes that are all too obvious in July 2026.
Sussex is on the frontline of climate change in the UK, and exotic southerly species becoming established here are a sign of the times. We're seeing it with the appearance of butterflies such as the Long-tailed Blue, with dragonflies such as the Norfolk Hawker, and with moths such as the Jersey Tiger.
The Jersey Tigers, in particular, are not going unnoticed.
Last Friday, we posted an image of one to social media and asked who was seeing them where they live. Three days later more than 5,000 people had commented on Facebook to report their sightings.
They are being found in gardens, parks and green spaces across Sussex, and way beyond, in London, in the West Country, in Wales and further north. People are rescuing them from conservatories, kitchen windowsills and sometimes from ponds.
A lot of people are snapping them with their phones - they tend to be "polite enough to pause for a photo" as one Facebook contributor put it.
But it's also because they're really rather swish. As if the cream-and-black streaking and shapely swept-back wings weren't enough, they flash a deep orange on their hindwings when they fly (and sometimes when at rest too).
They even look great 'the wrong way round', as several people noticed from the other side of a pane of glass.
The pattern on the upper wings is particularly distinctive. As one commenter put it: "This looked like one of my son's school shirts many years ago when I was ironing and got distracted by something on telly."
The stripiness, rather than spotty or blobbiness, is a helpful way to tell them from our other 'tigers'.
Have you counted for the Big Butterfly Count yet? Jersey Tigers are one of the non-butterfly species you can include on your 15-minute count.