The method of separating by dissection females of the nationally scarce Coleophora sternipennella from the rather more widespread Coleophora saxicolella as given in MoGBI has been found to be unsafe (for further information refer to the Dissection Website here). There are 14 records of sternipennella for Bucks and they are either given as female or else the sex wasn't recorded, so they have all been moved to the aggregate which unfortunately means that sternipennella no longer appears on the county list. Sadly it also means that my all-time garden moth species list gets reduced by one to exactly 1,000!
This will be of little interest to anyone who doesn't carry out dissections. However, I note from John Langmaid's distribution maps that the moth is apparently known from all of the counties which surround Bucks so there may be others in the same situation if no dissected males are included amongst their records.
Dave Wilton
Westcott, Bucks
The same Dissection website shows a female from Biggleswade confirmed in 2017, so they are in the near vicinity, it's just a case of finding them. I think all other Beds records fall the same way as Bucks.
ReplyDelete