I think the first is a typical Red-line, the second, a typical yellow line. Not sure about the third one
Here I think I have a moribund Large rather than Bulrush Wainscot.
Finally, can this be ID'd as Caloptilia rufipennella? Plain brown with black and white legs.
Mark Griffiths, Garsington, Oxford
Hi Mark, I agree on the first two being Red-line and Yellow-line Quakers. The third is also a Red-line. Not sure on the Wainscot or last one though.
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Nigel
Hello Mark, your Wainscot is certainly rather battered but the colour and wing shape/length certainly point to Large, while the Caloptilia is indeed rufipennella. With those two Quakers, surely looking at the background colour in daylight is the easiest way to separate them? Yellow-line is buff-coloured and care needs to be taken to separate it from Brick (which is usually larger), while Red-line is slate grey with or without an infusion of red. Sometimes it is better to sit back and look at the moth as a whole rather than zooming-in on a particular feature.
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ReplyDeleteOn the Caloptilia, this looks ok for rufipennella. With the leg colour, its the fore femur which is important - " mottled chocolate-brown and whitish" (Sterling and Parsons, 2012). However, elongella is highly variable and often with plain brown forewing, but rufipennella is smaller than elongella. You have to be very careful with this genus due to the variability of several species.
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