Saturday, 23 May 2015

Brechfa does the business

I feel slightly guilty reporting moth 69 spp (62 macro and 7 micro) to MV here last night, as others are all sounding so disappointed.  I think MV does tend to do better at this time of year anyway.  Highlights included:

1 Dark Brocade (photo)
1 Fox Moth (photo)
1 Alder Kitten & 1 Sallow Kitten
1 Acleris literana (photo)
9 species of Pug including 1 Ochreous Pug (photo)
3 Lunar Thorn
18 Peppered Moth
6 Puss Moth
6 Great Prominent
8 Least Black Arches
6 Poplar Hawkmoth & 1 Elephant Hawkmoth
and what looks to be my first ever Autumn Green Carpet (photo) with very pale hindwings, no sign of red at all, and relatively broad wings; thoughts from others would be welcome.

Acleris literana & Dark Brocade 


Fox Moth & Lunar Thorn
 
 
putative Autumn Green Carpet

 
 
Ochreous Pug (pale wings, long black dot, acute wings)
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6 comments:

  1. Steve Clarke23 May 2015 at 05:44

    Absolutely brilliant, Sam. What an amazing collection of moths and, for what it's worth, I'm certain that your moth is, in fact, Autumn Green Carpet. I would certainly claim it if I had had the good fortune to catch that one. I believe that the outer cross line on the underside of the wing, composed of a series of unjoined daggers, is a very useful diagnostic tool in addition to the colour and patterns of the topside. Necessary caveat: I've only seen the species five times, but these total ten individuals.

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  2. Ian Morgan23 May 2015 at 08:37

    Glad that someone did well!

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  3. Mel Jones23 May 2015 at 09:43

    Well done Sam, I wish I could catch half of them. My last trap on the 21st had 12 species. :-(
    In the garden last night and something really loud was buzzing around, I thought, here we go big moth coming, but alas it was a May beetle.

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  4. Barry Stewart24 May 2015 at 12:03

    The Chloroclysta is a real teaser. My gut reaction was that it looked too dark for AGC, especially with a fairly prominent dorsal median patch. However, looking at http://www.lepiforum.de/lepiwiki_vgl.pl?Chloroclysta_Miata, the first image looks very close to yours and the pale upperside to the hindwing is very pro-AGC. I'm not sure to be honest, but it does not look like a typical AGC to me, but then I've not seen that many. Great catch btw with no fewer than '6' Great Prominents!

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  5. sambbryo25 May 2015 at 13:14

    Thanks Barry. It didn't look quite that dark in real life - it landed on a white wall and that offered an open-winged shot I wouldn't normally get for such a troublesome genus. However, it wasn't as pale as most on-line photos of AGC. The hindwing was very pale on both underside and upperside, although I couldn't photograph the upperside of the hindwing. I should have kept it for dissection I guess.

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  6. Barry Stewart26 May 2015 at 09:39

    Photographs on white walls can be very deceptive - I'm sure you're right with AGC

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