Saturday, 25 July 2020

Mostly Micros.

Running a 20W actinic light in my back garden two nights ago resulted in 33 species (plus a half dozen more still to go) and only ten of them were macros. I tried a new position for the light, in order to try to tempt another Metalampra italica to show itself. The theory was that the previous one had emanated from the woodshed, so that's (approximately) where the light went. Bingo:


Last one into a pot, as well. It is doubly nice to target a species and then get it.
Another new for me micro was this Lyonetia prunifoliella:



Nine out of the twelve times I've run a back garden light since 7th of May I have caught Tachystola acroxantha - and it's still going strong.
Often times a light trap is approached mainly from a particular direction, but I have rarely seen it so marked a phenomenon as on that night: Almost every moth came to one end of the trap.
One of these turned up:


Are we going to have to dissect all these now, or is there some way to spot the Cryptic ones?

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7 comments:

  1. Dave Wilton25 July 2020 at 22:03

    Hi Andy,

    Very nice - L.prunifoliella is still rare in Bucks, that might be only the second record for the county! It might be as well to get a Fern checked for each site just so that we know which one might be there. I'd have to look up the differences but I think lack (or almost lack) of a discal spot is one pointer.

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    1. Andrew King25 July 2020 at 23:06

      Hello Dave,
      I thought I'd read somewhere about Fern/Cryptic differences, but I can't remember where and I couldn't find it during a brief trawl around earlier on today.
      I was certainly quite pleased and surprised with the prunifoliella.

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  2. Martin Townsend26 July 2020 at 07:55

    Try lepiforum

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  3. Martin Albertini26 July 2020 at 12:04

    Well done with the prunifoliella.
    I think there is a bit about id of Cryptic fern in Ent Rec. Ask Colin.

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  4. Dave Wilton26 July 2020 at 12:37

    The Ent Rec reference for Fern/Cryptic Fern is Vol.131 Part 6 (Nov/Dec 2019) pp 261-268. There was a small update with further records in the May/June 2020 issue.

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  5. Peter Hall27 July 2020 at 09:18

    I asked the Kent expert and a specialist in Austria about the 2 Fern species and they both came back with "you need to dissect them".

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  6. Andrew King27 July 2020 at 10:52

    Thanks Dave, Peter and the Martins. It'll be dissected in due course. The Lepiforum site being down, at the time, I also found this Belgian site: https://projects.biodiversity.be/lepidoptera/species/3945/

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