December 2010 - Golden Twin-spot

Helen Dawson struck again in December when a Golden Twin-spot emerged from a pupa that she found in orchids at Dobbies Garden Centre, Stirling. The species is a rare migrant largely to southern England but it also arrives in the UK as an import in potted plants. Presumably it is as a result of such imports that the species is said to be breeding in one of the biomes in the Eden Project in Cornwall. The orchids in which Helen found the pupa probably came from a nursery in Netherlands so one wonders if this nursery also has a breeding population.