Oct 10, 2017
In the woods of St. Antonin, a charming medieval town of southern France, there are traces of an invader: the ‘pyrale de buis’ or box tree moth. Native to eastern Asia, our host says tells us that the insect first hitched to south France along with a shipment of Chinese flowers for Christmas. Since then they’ve left a distinctive trail of destruction, devoured leaves along with the glistening hanging fibers that the larva use to climb, ninja-like, between their meals. The dried remains hang in this net, almost levitating.