Rare sightings – MothsIreland

4.076 Etainia decentella – New to Ireland

General interest, Leaf Mine, New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings, Rare sightings / April 11, 2023 April 11, 2023

26^th September 2022, I was near John Luke Bridge, New Forge, Belfast. Off on my regular morning jaunt with our dog, Milou, we ended up on the edge of Clement Wilson Park at the John Luke Bridge crossing the River Lagan. There are three Etainia species in Great Britain, E. sericopeza (feeds on Norway Maple) which I had found earlier in 2022 as New to Ireland, E. louisella (Field Maple) and E. decentella (Sycamore). I have been searching for louisella without any luck but at the bridge there was an opportunity to search for the much harder to find (described as near mythical by one of the leaf mine gurus!) decentella. It is thought that it is hard to find as it feeds on samaras high in the canopy, in fact unusually the adult is more frequently encountered than the mine.

The bridge offers some height and a large sycamore branch with samaras overhung the path. I almost immediately found a single mine. Despite a thorough search of the samaras I could reach I found no others.

To my eyes the mine is shorter and stockier than that formed by sericopeza. On line I could only find a very small number of images so I posted on the Leafmines Facebook page just to get confirmation which was quickly forthcoming.

Since this discovery two records of adults have come to light, one in Wicklow in 2022 and a much older record from Kildare in 2009. So this represents the first Irish record of the hard to find mine.

Dave Allen 16/02/23

Epinotia cinereana, 49.256 – New to Ireland!

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

Phyllonorycter tristrigella – New to Ireland!

General interest, Leaf Mine, New to Ireland, Rare sightings / February 8, 2023 February 8, 2023

15.078 Phyllonorycter tristrigella (Haworth, 1828)

16th August 2022, Minnowburn, Belfast. Off on my regular morning jaunt with our dog, Milou we ended up by the Minnowburn stream where there is good tree cover including a couple of Wych Elms Ulmus glabra in the under-storey. I initially noticed a gallery mine (turned out to be Stigmella lemniscella – yellow larva present) but then to my astonishment a tentiform mine of a Phyllonorycter, something I had never previously seen on Wych Elm, caught my eye. There are only two options in GB noted on the leaf mining websites, P. tristrigella and P. schreberella. There are no cross-over species listed i.e. species on the “wrong” host. A quick run through the keys and checking images quickly confirmed the mine to be P tristrigella. P. schreberella forms an oval tent/blotch, often crossing veins, it is uncommon on Wych Elm and has a very southern distribution in GB. Tristrigella mines lie between veins forming a strongly contracted tube running from mid-rib to leaf edge, obvious in the attached images. There are a few strong folds on this mine which hard to capture in the image as the mine is so puckered causing them to merge. Frass was tightly packed in bottom corner of the mine. The mine was vacated. Amazingly following this discovery Eamonn O’Donnell found a long vacated mine, also on Wych Elm, in Dublin the following day! Thanks again to CEDaR and the Environmental Recorders Group small grant. To date I have found it nowhere else despite searching.

Dave Allen 22/08/22

4.057 Stigmella suberivora (Stainton, 1869) New to Ireland

General interest, Leaf Mine, New to Ireland, Rare sightings / August 16, 2022 August 16, 2022

Thanks to a small grant from National Parks and Wildlife Service I was able to survey leaf mining Lepidoptera in the Republic of Ireland. Although my focus was on the border counties where leaf miners are seriously under recorded I kept the brief broad. This allowed me to travel to Meath and Dublin where I teamed up with my old friend Eamonn O’Donnell and his partner Kerri Gorentz. One of our search areas was to be the Botanic Gardens and Cemetery at Glasnevin, Co Dublin. These places are usually good for leaf miners with an array of exotic, non-native trees and shrubs. I was also well aware of the recent discovery of Ectoedemia heringella on evergreen oaks Quercus ilex at the Botanic Gardens.

E. heringella was easily found in both the Gardens and cemetery. Typically, it is already abundant with multiple mines on many leaves. I knew from looking at leaf mines in France and London that another species could also occur on these trees, S. suberivora, but that finding it has become much harder because of the density of heringella mines which can obscure it.

After about fifteen minutes of searching I found what I believed to be two mines of suberivora. Both were on leaves lacking heringella mines. The heringella mines are small ad compact taking up on average less than a square cm whereas the two suberivora mines were long (just over 4cm) and along the leaf margin. Mines of both were packed with black frass and egg upper in both cases. Without backlighting the mines are buffish in colour. As heringella increases in numbers, which it will, then suberivora is likely to become increasingly difficult to locate. A number of UK experts concurred with the identification.

Mines of E. heringella

Mine of S. suberivora (backlit)

The same mine without backlighting

Dave Allen July 2022

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

New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings, Rare sightings / May 7, 2022 May 8, 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.