Friday, 8 March 2019

Psychidae moth larva at Dancersend

This morning I spotted a tiny (5mm) conical lump of lichen bits on a beech trunk at Dancersend. When I approached closer with my camera in macro mode it moved! I collected it and got more photos at home - not brilliant as I couldn't get the lighting right. I think it is one of the Psychidae, probably Luffia ferchaultella, but then spotted that Albertini and Hall had a record of Luffia lapidella on my Dancersend Moths master list. I thought this was the much rarer species, but I can see there's probably been some splitting in recent years. Will I need to breed it out to be sure? I also got a video of the front part of the larva trying to reattach itself to a twig, but not sure I can load this here.

Mick Jones

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3 comments:

  1. Dave Wilton8 March 2019 at 19:32

    Hi Mick, they are now considered one and the same species. To quote the latest update to the British ABH list in the Jan/Feb issue of Ent Rec:
    "11.009 Luffia ferchaultella considered a form of L. lapidella by Arscheid and Weidlich (2017)" 11.008 L.lapidella is deleted from the British list and 11.009 is renamed from L.ferchaultella to L.lapidella. Hope you're still with me...!

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    Replies
    1. Dave Wilton8 March 2019 at 19:34

      ...and by the way, the video worked! Didn't know you could do that on Blogger.

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    2. Mick Jones8 March 2019 at 20:12

      Thanks Dave. Now I know that it will be returned to its beech tree tomorrow.

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