Wednesday 24 August 2016

Rustic and micros for help



Is this a Hedge Rustic? Caught a couple of weeks ago I thought it was but going through my photos I'm now not sure.






 I know most of the Yponomeuta species can't be identified from external features but with the amount of grey I wondered if this one could be identified? Caught on 22nd.




 Finally any help with this one would be appreciated. About 4.5mm in length. Caught on 22nd.



Andy Newbold, Sibford Ferris, Oxon.


6 comments:

  1. Not sure about your macro, Andy. I'm not convinced that it is Hedge Rustic either - not a species I see all that often but as it happens I did get one last night to remind me what it looks like. Do you have any more images? Your moth could perhaps be Flounced Rustic (which is the answer to a lot of ID queries at this time of year). The Yponomeuta isn't do-able to species, I'm afraid, while the third picture is a Gracillariid and could be a Parornix or perhaps Callisto denticulella (it would need a better image to be sure).

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  2. Thank you for your quick response. I'll look through the images I have got again later but I think I have probably selected the best. I had wondered about a Flounced Rustic but have caught several and I definitely thought they were different to the one in the image. On the 22nd I caught fairly large numbers of both Small Square-spot and Square-spot Rustic. They both showed quite a lot of variation and I wondered if there are other similar species I should be looking out for among them.

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  3. I also think Flounced Rustic. There's a lot of images on the Moth Dissection website of adults showing variations. I hope you can get a better image of the micro, even the eyes, as it looks a bit like Acrocercops brongniardella or similar.

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  4. I have one other image of the micro which I will post as a new blog. (I don't know how to include an image in a reply). I don't think it will help much as micros of this size are right on the limit of what my camera can cope with.

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  5. Flounced Rustic for me too. See many looking exactly like that, they can be variable although the general markings are pretty consistent. Sometimes if its a female it seems to have a different resting posture etc because the wings have to fold round a much larger abdomen which can make it look more different.

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  6. Thank you all. Flounced Rustic seems pretty unanimous and I certainly caught several in the following nights.

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