Rare moth sightings – Page 2

Epinotia cinereana, 49.256 – New to Ireland!

New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings, Rare sightings / March 18, 2023

49.256 Epinotia cinereana (Haworth, 1811)

Aspen, Populus tremula is not a common tree in my area but is a species which has an associated rich moth fauna. There are a couple of fairly well known Aspen stands of around 20 odd trees each in Killarney National Park, in particular one nice group at Dinis. It is the only site where I can regularly record the Seraphim Lobophora halterata, earlier in the season.

On the night of 29th July 2022 I headed down there for a short moth trapping session, a 3km cycle on the bike with my 80mv trap balancing on the crossbar! It was a “good night” weather-wise with plenty of moth activity. Peppered Moths Biston betularia and Grey Arches Polia nebulosa providing a few shocks as they came crashing in!

Around midnight I was admiring a fresh Cydia splendana when another Tortrix landed on the sheet. Clearly something I had not had before. It was quite striking, clean and monochrome. I potted it and looked it up later and felt it was a good candidate for Epinotia cinereana. It was sent to Ken Bond who confirmed by genital dissection that it was indeed a female Epinotia cinereana, the first confirmed record in Ireland.

This is a species once considered a subspecies of Epinotia nisella, but now considered a species in its own right. It feeds on Aspen whereas E. nisella feeds on Sallows Salix sp. and there are various genital differences.

Thanks to Ken Bond for confirming the identification.

Stephen Cotter

March 2023

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63.014 Sitochroa Palealis – First Irish record.

New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings / March 13, 2023

It was 17^th July, and I was on my holidays at a place called Ballyconnery, approximately 7 kilometres north of Dungarvan, Waterford. My uncle Philip arrived down with a car full of moth traps and we set out to put several 125w Robinson’s MV traps in various locations around the house and farmland where we were staying. The habitat looked really good for trapping with a mixture of scrub, native meadow and mixed woodland nearby. Three traps were set up in the fields and scrub and were powered using a string of 50m mains extension cables thereby allowing us decent coverage. One was comfortably nestled at the front of the house among a mixed wildflower and Verbascum garden (no sign of any mullein moth activities unfortunately).

The week had been a hot one and the next was to be even hotter. Temperatures for the night reached a low of around 16-19 degrees Celsius and as day became night, the traps began to light up. Things were already looking good, and it was about to get even better. During the night, we checked the traps to see if any interesting species had entered. An obvious and striking record to be noted was the Orange Moth Angerona prunaria.

The sun rose early that morning, as it does in July, and we set off to inspect the traps just as it was rising. When going through the contents of the third trap, we came across what seemed to be a relatively large and pale micro-moth. I could only think of it as being an unusually large Timothy Tortrix Aphelia paleana. It was sitting in a part of the trap that made it difficult to pot and during its attempted capture it flew up and away before circling around and eventually landing on my T shirt! Luck was with us, and Philip made sure to seal the jar firmly, preventing any further calamity.

The fourth trap was done thoroughly and with a sense of great anticipation at this mysterious moth’s identification. The process began immediately after any necessary clean-up. We made certain of the confirmation that it was indeed not a large Timothy Tortrix but after a brief additional surfing through multiple picture and photograph books, both of us were in agreement. The moth could only to be Sitochroa palealis, a moth previously unrecorded in Ireland.

The moth was pale with dark vein-like patterns, living up to its description as “pale sulphur yellow to whitish…veins variably darker.” (Sterling and Parsons, 2012) It had an obscure dark spot as also mentioned in the book. The specimen was retained to ensure any further analysis could be done if needed.

Sitochroa palealis is found throughout mainland Europe and also in the south of England. Its vernacular name is the Carrot Seed Moth as the larvae feed on wild carrot and similar plants. It is a species of the family Crambidae with a wingspan of 26–34 mm.

A combination of great habitat, perfect trapping conditions and the right time of year resulted in a very productive night’s trapping with approximately 150 species recorded. Other notable records included Cloaked Pug Euphyia biangulata, Pammenne regiana and Hedya ochroleucana.

Conor Strickland

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4.074 Etainia sericopeza (Zeller, 1839) – New to Ireland

Leaf Mine, New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings / October 12, 2022

Thanks to a small grant from CEDaR Environmental Recorders Group I was to spend a bit more time than usual looking at leaf mines in Northern Ireland. One of my search areas, which I have rarely visited, was Ormeau Park, Belfast (Co Down) not very distant, but an area with many mature trees and a good under-storey.

A gentle stroll into the park on 22^nd July 2022 quickly revealed a number of common species on beech and hazel. A mature Norway maple (Acer platanoides) then drew my attention. In Ireland I have been looking in vain for “samara miners” for over six years. I have seen two species with ease in France so my eye is “in”. A number of samaras were on the ground, I was totally flabbergasted to immediately find two mined samaras. The mines were of Etainia sericopeza (field maple and sycamore have different miners).

The egg is laid on the wing of the samara, the larva then mines a thin gallery towards and into the seed. Depending on the age of the samara the mines can be obvious or more cryptic.

On 23^rd July I could not believe my luck in finding another mined samara, this time at Shaw’s Bridge, Belfast (Co Antrim).

Dave Allen July 2022

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73.330 Radford’s Flame Shoulder, Ochropleura leucogaster – New to Ireland

New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings, Rare sightings / May 7, 2022

On arrival at Cape Clear Island, West Cork in October 2021 for my usual sojourn, it quickly became obvious that there were quite a few migrant moths and Red Admirals about. There were a few Rush Veneers Nomophila noctuella and uncountable numbers of Rusty-dot Pearl Udea ferrugalis seen throughout the island each day. The weather was generally drifting South/South-east all week and with mild nights my trap was put out most nights mostly because of the unending enthusiasm of James McNally.

During the week in a discussion with Michael O’Donnell he happened to mention that there was a large number of Radford’s Flame Shoulders Ochropleura leucogaster in Britain and that I should keep an eye out for it as it is a migrant species. We, James, Dr. Geoff Oliver and I, were a bit disappointed by the quantity and quality of what was in our trap most night with lots of Rusty-dot Pearl and on one night five Gem Orthonama obstipata being the only moths of note. Later that week we trapped a Flame Shoulder Ochropleura plecta, which is the only possible confusion species with Radford’s but as I am very familiar with this common species there was no sense of excitement.

However, on emptying the trap on the morning of the 16^th, Chick (JMcN) took out an eggbox with just one moth on it and I quickly noticed it was similar to but different from Flame Shoulder. Could it be? I quickly potted it for closer examination and was pretty sure that what I was looking at was a Radford’s Flame Shoulder. The moth was longer and narrower than Flame Shoulder and the white edge to the wing reached the ‘shoulders’ and continued across the thorax to complete a white-lined loop. This feature is not mentioned in the literature but is very obviously different to Flame Shoulder. I was able to see that the moth had pure white hindwings which differ to the yellowish hindwing of Flame Shoulder. I was sure that we were looking at a first Irish record and this was quickly confirmed on a UK moths Facebook page.

This was the first but will not be the last. Of that I am certain.

Eamonn O’Donnell

Radford’s Flame Shoulder Ochropleura leucogaster Cape Clear Island, West Cork.

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49.288 Epiblema foenella – First Irish record.

General interest, New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings / March 30, 2022

I’ve been moth trapping in my suburban garden in Baldoyle, Co Dublin since 2010, usually with a 40W actinic Skinner trap. The weather forecast for the night of the 21^st/22^nd July 2021 looked OK for moths so I set up the trap in its usual spot against the wall of my garden shed. The next morning the minimum recorded temperature overnight had been 14.8 deg. C and a quick peek into the trap showed a lot of moths in among the egg trays (after processing the catch, I had 44 species, quite a good haul for my area).

I noticed a somewhat striking micro moth on the shed wall and took a couple of shots with it before going through the contents of the trap. For some reason I thought it looked familiar and didn’t pay it too much attention. How wrong I was!

I was more interested in a Yellowtail and a Chevron, both fairly infrequent records for me. It was only later when I started going through the photos of all the species that I wasn’t able to identify on sight, that I realized I had caught something special. Of course, when I rushed back down to the shed it was gone (hopefully not down the gullet of my opportunistic resident Robin).

Despite it being a quite unique looking micro moth, it didn’t leap off the page when I was going through the Sterling field guide but posting a photo on the MI Facebook page quickly had me pointed in the right direction (thanks everyone), Epiblema foenella. As usual, when I went back to the field guide I was left wondering how I missed it first time around. There isn’t really anything else it could have been.

The map in Sterling confirms its presence in north Wales including Anglesey and also the Isle of Man, so it really was only a matter of time before it turned up on our shores. The larval food plant is listed as Mugwort Artemisia vulgaris which is certainly common along the east coast.

2021 has been a somewhat unusual year for mothing in my garden. As well as the Epiblema foenella record, I had shared a joint first Irish record of Euzophera pinguis with Gareth O’Donnell just a fortnight earlier. I had also recorded quite a few ‘firsts’ for my garden, both macro and micro moths. After running a trap on the same site for so many years it was very unusual and very exciting to add so many new species to the site list in a single season. Adding two to the national species list is an added bonus. All this excitement is tempered somewhat when I look at the number of species that have completely disappeared from my garden since I started recording or others whose numbers continue to decline with each passing year.

Cian Merne

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