Thursday 1 March 2018

Lampronia fuscatella

I'm going to make the rash assumption that people aren't catching too many moths at the moment. So, to brighten up your day(?), here is one I caught in the middle of last May. As most of you will know, some moths require dissection in order to be identified - a warm way to do some mothing in the winter.
I collected numerous Birch twigs last spring from Stoke Common near Fulmer in Bucks) in the hope of raising some Lampronia fuscatella; the caterpillars live inside the twigs. Not a single success. However, I did catch this moth with a light trap, which seemed a likely candidate:


A female. I'm not sure how many of these have been caught in Bucks - but it won't be many.
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3 comments:

  1. Dave Wilton1 March 2018 at 14:29

    Hello Andy,
    Nice one! From that picture I would have been looking at something like Pseudatemelia flavifrontella so would definitely have been barking up the wrong tree without dissection! Martin will no doubt confirm, but I'm only aware of one other record for Bucks (May 2014 at the Chiltern Woodland Burial Park).

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  2. Martin Albertini1 March 2018 at 15:40

    I can confirm that the record Dave gave is the only previous Bucks one that I know of. Incidentally it was confirmed by John Langmaid.
    According to the national distribution maps, it is widespread in the UK, but there are a lot of vice counties that don't have records. This fits with the published status of very local. Well done Andy.

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  3. Andrew King1 March 2018 at 15:57

    Thank you, chaps. Yes, any of the Pseudatemelias were possibles, it seemed to me.

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