Category: Science

I saw my first Merveille du Jour (Griposia aprilina) in the autumn of 2019, a year after I started mothing. A couple have turned up to my 20W actinic Skinner trap in October 2023. I photographed the first without props, but this morning, despite my head cold, I cycled to the local woodland to forage for a few lichen-encrusted oak twigs and leaves for a more authentic photoshoot. The moth’s larvae feed on oak (Quercus) flowers and later leaves.

First appearances for Merv in our garden

2023 – 8th October
2022 – 22nd October
2021 – No show
2020 – 14th October
2019 – 5th October
2018 – No show

Is this a Northern Deep-brown Dart, Aporophyla lueneburgensis or just a Deep-brown Dart, A. lutulenta? Nobody seems to be able to decide definitively, there’s a taxonomic debate raging among lepidopterists. Some record keepers will allow “aggregate”, others accept only the latter for the UK…it’s all very confusing. I’ve only been mothing since 2018, after all.

Moreover, some experts cannot decide whether they are two species or one, where either or both lives, and even whether the Northern one is actually predominant in the South. That said, there do seem to be two distinct larvae, so two species, the question then is whether or not we have both in the UK.

Now, to my inexpert eye the two specimens I have photos of here look rather different. But looks aren’t everything when it comes to moths. Some moths can vary a lot from specimen to specimen, such as the Lunar Underwing, which can be dark or light and vary in terms of the patterning on its wings. Other moths of entirely different species can look very, very alike, Dark Dagger and Grey Dagger, for instance. In fact, these latter two species cannot be distinguished based on their superficial appearance but only by dissection and examination of their genitalia, so-called “gen-det”.

So, if the moth above is either a Northern Deep-brown Dart or a Deep-brown Dart, is the specimen below a Deep-brown Dart or a Northern Deep-brown Dart. Both, either, or just one have been in my garden. There’s a French paper that talks about the genomes of two specimens that were purportedly one of each as being the same and our local list has settled on DBD. But, there’s also work in Poland that shows the genomes to be sufficiently different to think of them as two separate species. Nothing is ever settled in taxonomy, as many of you will know, it is and always has been a dynamic science, DNA science just added to the evidence and clarified some of the confusion in some areas but raised doubts in others. There is always debate and change.

I don’t know enough about these/this species and seemingly neither do the lepidopterists to decide one way or the other…yet. I have recorded them in my personal logs as two species, Northern DBD and DBD, but when they settle on the science, I will update those records if I need to. I’ll leave my County Moth Recorder to decide either way when I submit them at the end of the year.

The Blair’s Shoulder-knot moth, Lithophane leautieri, is another noctuid (owlet) moth that was first recorded in the UK in 1951. In this case, it was first reported on the Isle of Wight. Yesterday’s shimmering bronze beauty, the Dewick’s Plusia was first found in Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex, that year.

The BSK is now found pretty much all over England as far north as Cumbria. It is an autumnal species and its larvae feed on the flowers of various conifers such as Cupressocyparis leylandii etc. I’ve been mothing for six seasons now and have recorded it from late September into November.

The title of this blog post alludes to Tony Blair, British Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007. I was imagining a crossword clue for Lepidopterists to which the answer would be the name of this moth.

Photos of all the Noctuids I’ve recorded feature in the macro moths section of my Imaging Storm galleries.

This beautiful, shimmering bronze creature with the creamy markings on its wings is Dewick’s Plusia, Macdunnoughia confusa. It’s one of the many “Noctuid” moths sometimes known as “owlets” and was a rare visitor from the Continent where it is fairly widespread. Related to the Burnished Brass, Silver Y, and Ni Moth.

It was first seen in Essex (Bradwell-on-Sea) in 1951 and the total number recorded in the 20th Century was just 40. There are almost 500 records now. There is some evidence that this continental vagrant has become established in the South-east and elsewhere, Derbyshire, Warwickshire, Somerset…

I’ve seen it a few times in our Cambridgeshire garden (mid-September 2019 and early August 2021, previously) and I know others locally see it too. Still, it remains a relative rarity across most of the UK although there is anecdotal evidence of it becoming resident. As far as I know, it hasn’t been recorded on the island of Ireland, yet.

Dewick’s Plusia sits within the Noctuid sub-group known as the Plusiinae, which includes the likes of The Spectacle, Burnished Brass, the Ni Moth (it’s attracted to the Ni sex pheromone), the Silver Y, and others. Photos of all the Noctuids I’ve recorded feature in the macro moths section of my Imaging Storm galleries.

This is one of those moths that could be any of half a dozen different species. You cannot know for sure unless you’ve raised it from larvae, done DNA testing, or what the lepidopterists call “gen det”, which is where you dissect the male’s genitalia, which are different across the species…and I’m really not going there! “Gen det” is an abbreviation of “determination by genitalia examination”.

So, we have to record it as a generic member of its genus, or actually in this case two geni:

Swammerdamia/Pseudoswammerdamia sp. Some people might use the term agg. (for aggregated species) instead of sp. (meaning any of a number of species).

The vernacular name for the various species in these two geni is Ermel, so this could be a Birch Ermel, a Rowan Ermel, Little Ermel, a Scotch Ermel etc…

These moths are about 5mm long, so I used a 45mm extension tube to get closer with my macro lens and even then couldn’t fill the frame. Incidentally, while the term micro (meaning small) and macro (meaning large) was perhaps an original division for Lepidoptera, as new species were discovered it was realised that many micros are far bigger than some of the macros and vice versa. Turns out, although these things are never set in stone, that the micro moths are evolutionarily older than the macro moths. The butterflies, which can be very big, are loosely micro moths and sit somewhere in a fork in the family tree.

Shot taken with a mirrorless Canon R7 camera using the onboard focus stacking feature and then a touch of sharpening with Topaz Sharpen AI.

Despite its name, the Scorched Carpet moth does not eat carpets, its larvae feed on spindle Euonymus europaeus. There are in fact just a handful of moths, of the 180,000 or so species of moth worldwide, that eat wool and other textiles.

Indeed, this species has nothing to do with carpets. Many of the geometer (inchworm) moths are so named because the early Lepidopterists thought they resembled the patterns of luxury carpets. They were honouring the moths by naming them carpets.

The Scorched Carpet species is mainly creamy with brown splodges the edges of which have a hue as if they have been slightly burnt. Although the underside looks even more scorched. Overall, however, when at rest the moth looks like a small splat of bird poo. There are many moths that have evolved this camouflage strategy. I’ve only seen it a few times, twice in 2023.

I was tidying up the mothing equipment, which is basically a box and egg cartons when I noticed a Least Carpet roosting on a window frame in the conservatory, I stepped up with a pot to catch it so I could release it into the back garden but spotted another tiny moth next to it. At this point, I wasn’t even sure it was a moth. It looked orange with what seemed to be white stripes. I grabbed a quick phone macro shot, before potting it.

It wasn’t a species I’d noticed or recorded before, but the ObsIdentify app ticked it as the Horse-chestnut Leafminer, Cameraria ohridella. This was confirmed by a quick look at the species page on UK Moths. LabLit on twitter has now told me that the moth’s species name “ohridella” is named for Lake Ohrid in Macedonia.

I set up my macro “studio” and got some closeups of the moth against a matte white background, once it would sit still for more than a second or two. The moth is a mere 4 millimetres, I’d say, thank goodness for macro lenses and extension tubes.

As the moth’s name would suggest, the tiny larvae of this moth species, grow inside leaves of the Horse Chestnut tree, nibbling their way around the interior of the leaf and forming what are referred to as leaf mines. An infestation of this moth can ravage a tree leaving its leaves brown and withered at the end of summer and giving the appearance of imminent death in the tree. Thankfully, the damage done by the leafminers, while more than cosmetic, does not seem to harm the Horse Chestnuts. They lose their leaves in the autumn, as all deciduous trees are wont to do. Incidentally, the UK Moths site points out that a fungal infection has a similar effect on the appearance of the leaves of this tree.

The moth species was first recorded in Macedonia in 1985 and took just 15 or 16 years to reach the UK. It was recorded in Wimbledon in 2002 but was abundant so may have arrived just after the eponymous tennis tournament the year before. First seen in my village of Cottenham in 2004 and recorded by a fellow mothing friend at the other end of the village in 2022. I may well have seen it last year without realising, of course.

UPDATE: 27 July 2023, we camped under a Horse Chestnut at Cherry Hinton Hall for the Cambridge Folk Festival. The tree was covered in larvae and lots of adults flying about.