About one week ago I had a visitor, so called Magpie moth (Nyctemera) , it is called "magpie" because of black and white wings, here is her photo showing the characteristic top view. This type of moths are also called "tiger moths" because their abdomen often has black and yellow stripes; they mimic stripy wasps trying to scare (and warn) whoever would be tempted to eat them. Picture showing the strips on abdomen is the second one below.
The moth was a female and has left a few eggs on the twig it was sitting on, each egg smaller than 1mm....
And today several hairy caterpillars all emerged from the eggs. They are now about 2 mm long and very hairy. They feed on Senecio. (Photo of the caterpillar below was taken against the backdrop of a blue plastic box.)
The bristles are long. (In general one should avoid contact with hairy caterpillars as some species can cause severe itching, even can sting and/or cause blindness. Maybe this particular species is not dangerous, but you never know for sure...)
Interesting thing about tiger moths is that they can produce sounds (but in frequency range beyond human hearing abilities). Perhaps such sounds serve to confuse bats or discourage bats from eating tiger moths as they are not tasty anyway.
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