Recently Paul Black got in touch to pass on the exciting news that he had recorded the first ever Porter's Rustic (Athetis hospes) in Berkshire, only the second record for Upper Thames as a whole, after Richard Ellis's in 2008 on the eastern edge of Buckinghamshire.
Paul found the moth on 24 September in Leckhampstead, while trapping in a pumpkin field - a habitat I had not previously considered targeting for moths!
If anyone is lucky enough to find another one it is worth checking that the hind wings are bright white with darkened cilia at the tip. A rather similar species, Athetis lepigone, has been found in the UK this year, I think as an immigrant to the east coast. It has the hind wings a duller grey with darkened veins, as shown on the Lepiforum site.
 |
| Porter's Rustic, Berkshire, photo by Paul Black |
 |
| Porter's Rustic, Berkshire, photo by Paul Black |
 |
| Porter's Rustic, Berkshire, Paul's specimen, photo by Martin Harvey |
Thank you for this exciting news - I will join in the search. I am absolutely sure that I would have overlooked this moth (should it visit) without this informed prompt. A propos my post on AI, I tried these three images on my iPhone bugspotter and although it messed up the first two with talk of Armyworms and Sugarcane Midgets, it did get Athetis for your last one, although did not venture into more detail than that. But one of the eight 'similar Web images' which it gave as thumbnails below its ID was Porter's Rustic. The others included two of Athetis tenuis. I live in hope! All v best MW
ReplyDelete