This beautifully coloured blue tortrix showed up in my trap this week.
I reckon a Celypha - is there enough longitudinal streak for lacunana or may it be undulana or something quite different? Would be grateful to learn what this is and about colour variation please. Many thanks
Hi Mary-Anne, this does appear to be C. lacunana and a proportion of the specimens that I have seen over the last few years have had grey-blue (?) scales set into the white bands and patches, usually in a central row. The exact colour may depend on the lighting (but also in the eye of the beholder!).
ReplyDeleteThank you, John, helpful to know that this small amount of longitudinal line is enough for lacunana. The eye of this beholder just enjoys the beauty of the bluey hue!
ReplyDeleteI'd imagine that's actually an Endothenia which with no size information would need dissection to get to species.
ReplyDeleteJust caught up with this - thank you, Dave. Rest assured I will record it as 'agg' However we have teasel in the garden and some of the gentianaeana on the Norfolk Moths site have similar blue hue so that may be a possibility.
DeleteHi Dave and Mary-Anne, Thanks for putting us right on this one, Dave - I did consider Endothenia sp. but was persuaded particularly by the side view in which the shapes of the 'blotches' and costal markings in the terminal region in particular looked much more typical of C. lacunana than Endothenia sp. (although I only really compared to images that I have of E. gentianaeana) - some images of C. lacunana do look like Mary-Anne's specimen! (e.g., https://lepiforum.org/wiki/page/Celypha_Lacunana#/image/1/15)
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