It's bad news I'm afraid. Our rare Hawksmoor Processionary Baguette moth has been infected and effectively predated by the Osmotic Chlorophytic Bacteriophage.
This virus permeates the protective membrane of the larvae when in the chrysalis phase and turns it a green colour.
The matrix of the creature is then rendered in to a thin layer of material of cardboard like texture.
However, it is simultaneously good news as this product of the activity of the virus produces a completely non-toxic sweetener with, as far as science has thus far determined, no adverse long term negative effects. This sample will be analysed by the Miles-Schinkley labs in Dinnington where there is some optimism that if the process can be decoded there may be a possibility of commercial exploitation of the product, with no harm being done to wildlife.
Archaeologists have suggested that a process of farming the moth and deliberately infecting them with the virus to capture the unusual sweetener was developed by early hominids, and no doubt archaeologists have some mocked up images of this somewhere to prove it.
That's all from A Country Diary this week. Next week, Sheep Farming in Barnet and the impact that that had on New Wave music in the late 1970s.
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