Tuesday, 13 July 2021

Scoring a century is hard work for the "scorer"

I have only really been mothing for three years, so identification is still a slog, especially in peak season.  When "processing" a trap, I write down any moths I can confidently identify, but I photograph anything else, which is rather a lot!  More than a few tentative identifications are changed when I look at the photo on a big screen and check text and figures in books and websites.

Previously, the highest number of species I have caught in a single night in my garden was 73, set on 30th June this year, and narrowly beating 71 and 72 last summer.  I also caught 90 species in a single night in France last summer, but on that occasion I had a lot of help with identification.

I ran my two traps in the garden on the night of 8th July.  I spent almost the whole of the following day processing the catch and I have finally finished examination of the photos.  That night has smashed my records with 113 probable species from a coincidentally round total of precisely 500 moths.  These exclude a handful of moths that were too worn to bother with, but include aggregates and some moths that will need dissection to confirm or to get to species level.

Although that's 40 more species than my previous record night at home, a rather smaller figure of 13 species were new for the garden list, and none of those was especially noteworthy (examples of common species at last getting onto the garden list include Scarlet Tiger, Blue-bordered Carpet and Crambus pascuella).

I'd appreciate some confirmations on a few of them. I think this is a White-point as it seems different from the Clays that I have caught on other occasions.

Probable White-point
Newton Longville, 8th July 2021
I have recorded the next one as Epinotia tenerana, but it has rather less of the "old blood" colour than most other examples that I can find.

Probable Epinotia tenerana
Newton Longville, 8th July 2021
Then some moths that aren't recorded in the above figures as I think the identification isn't strong enough.  The best theory I can come up with for the third moth is a particularly obscure example of Eudemis profundana.  After toying with various Pyralids (and despite another individual being a decent match for Acrobasis advenella), I think the last one may too far gone to count.


There were a few somewhat less common moths amongst the catch, including Beautiful Hook-tip (having a good year here), Least Carpet, Brown Scallop, Dingy Shears and Ethmia dodecea.  The Chrysoteuchia culmella count ran (just) into three figures, but a single Catoptria pinella brought some visual relief amongst the grass moths.  An early Copper Underwing (agg.) escaped my attempt to pot it for photography, and other insects that I don't usually find in the trap included a Meadow Brown butterfly, Water Boatmen and my first-ever Cockchafer.

Tim Arnold
Newton Longville

4 comments:

  1. Impressive work, I identified 55 species in one trap over two nights last weekend. It is a Skinner with a 125 MV. Are you using something similar? (not sure I want 800 moths though)

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  2. Very well done Tim! It was a reasonable night in the garden here too but I didn't think it was quite good enough for a century. You've prompted me to add up the totals now and it did indeed hit exactly a hundred species with perhaps one or two more to come from the five coleophoriids that need dissection (I've counted them as one for now). That was from 397 moths though, significantly fewer than your 500. Part of the difference will have been your culmella count (only 48 here) but that still means a lot more moths for you to wade through than I had!

    Looking at your queries, the White-point is correct. Of the next two, the first is I think a not-quite-typical Ancylis achatana while your suggestion of Eudemis profundana for the second is almost certainly correct (there are very obscure dark forms like that but it is one I'd get properly looked at to be sure). The final moth isn't Acrobasis advenella (no sign of red on the head) and I think the best match is repandana with a hint of that large area of fawn colouring ahead of the central dark band. However, it is really too far gone to be sure.

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  3. Incidentally, Tim, I'm no beetle expert but to me it seems rather late for Cockchafer now. Are you sure it was Melolontha melolontha and not one of the other not-quite-so-big chafers that are about now?

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  4. Thanks Dave. I'm not sure how I missed Ancylis achatana.

    I neither photographed nor kept the beetle, but my memory of its appearance is that it was larger than 20mm and the elytra were quite stripy, hence my automatic assumption (as a non-coleopterist) that it was a Cockchafer. However, after doing some research, it does seem much too late for a Cockchafer, and so it was probably Amphimallon solstitiale. As indicated by the specific epithet, this species appears around mid-summer, and the distribution seems right, whereas the only other UK species of Melolontha (M. hippocastani) isn't found this far south. We'll never know for sure.

    Hi Barnaby. I use Skinner traps in two different places in the garden simultaneously (one site seems to get about 50% moths than the other this year). I use two different lights and I alternate the lights between the two places on successive sessions. One trap uses a self-built LED light that is rich in UV and consumes around 20W. After a breakage in February, and following a recommendation from some friends in France, I replaced the 15W actinic strip on the other trap with a 15W Synergetic striplight, which is electrically compatible with the normal actinic but to humans its light is brighter and greener than the actinic. Both kinds are used in commercial fly-killing traps.

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