Wednesday 4 June 2014

Making Progress in Central Oxford

I've been having some better catches over the last few days here in central Oxford though as usual my numbers are always lower than the stellar counts that Steve gets just over a mile away in relatively rural Wolvercote. New for years for my garden have included Dark Arches, Common Swift, Large Nutmeg, The Spectacle, Heart and Dart, Fan Foot and Green Pug for the macros and Notocelia Rosaecolana, Cochylis Nana and Barred Fruit-tree Tortrix for the micros. I'm left with three I can't pin down: the first is probably too poorly marked to ID, the second is a well marked Eudonia/Scoparia species which I thought would be easy but I'm struggling with and the third is a Nemapogon species which mostly closely matches N variatella from photos I've found on the internet though that's supposedly only found in the London area (these things seem to change very quickly though). However it may just be N cloacella (Cork Moth) instead which is much commoner.

Adam Hartley

Worn micro
Eudonia/Scoparia species
Nemapogon variatella or just N. cloacella?

3 comments:

  1. Your middle one is Scoparia ambigualis. Do you have a size for the Nemapogon please?

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  2. Hi Peter, thanks for that. If you look at the Nemapogon photo the distance between the first line on the pot just beyond its head and the second pot line that comes about three quarters of the way down its body is 7mm and the distance from the second to the third pot line is another 3mm. From that I would estimate that it's about 7 or 8mm or so.

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  3. I think the Nemapogon is cloacella (yellowish head, varietella should be white).

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