4.057 Stigmella suberivora (Stainton, 1869) New to Ireland

General interest, Leaf Mine, New to Ireland, Rare sightings /

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

Triple-spotted Clay, Xestia ditrapezium. Rosbeg, Co. Donegal – Last recorded in 1956! July 2021

Uncategorized /

July 2021 was mostly warm and sunny, a good month for moth trapping in south-west Donegal and a hot, dry, tropical weather system was being drawn up from the south-east between 15 –25 July. This was my 2nd summer of trapping and I set my Skinner 20W trap on the night of 23 July at the back of my house in Rosbeg, Co. Donegal where there is heathland and some willow trees.

My sister Amanda was due to visit the following day and I thought I would have any trapped moths more or less sorted by then. I duly unpacked it early the next morning with 21 species and 71 moths.

I had had several Double-square Spot Xestia triangulum already that month however, the specimen I was checking that morning was decidedly purple, shimmering and just had a different “jizz” about it.

As a relative novice with just Waring, Townsend & Lewington’s field guide the picture was a very good match for Triple-spotted Clay Xestia ditrapezium. Though it couldn’t be as it had not been recorded in Ireland since 1956 and that was in Dublin. Or could it be?

It went into the fridge for further inspection, and the photo and query went up onto MothsIreland Facebook page.

Amanda arrived and we both waited in anticipation for the expert’s view. Possibly, and probably not were the responses, but to freeze it anyhow for Ken Bond’s expert analysis.

Two nights later we took Amanda’s battery-operated Skinner 20W trap to Sheskinmore Nature Reserve for the first time with kind permission from NPWS. It is about 4km from the house. We found a suitable location at the edge of the machair, bordering a small wooded area.

On the twenty min walk back to the car we met a fellow moth enthusiast with his traps. It was Timothy McKillen who said he had been trapping in Sheskinmore for around ten years. We mentioned the possible Triple-Spotted Clay and he remarked that he had found a number of moths over the years which he thought matched the identification though they were not confirmed as they had not been not dissected. Encouraging and interesting news.

The following morning at 06.15am we opened the trap in Sheskinmore and found a very similar moth to the Rosbeg specimen, which also went in the freezer.

The 2 specimens were posted to Ken Bond.

Big excitement at 07.15am on 11 November. Ken Bond had confirmed that both specimens were indeed Triple-spotted Clay, Xestia ditrapezium. A possible small population of this native species.

Hidden in plain sight in Rosbeg Co. Donegal.

Triple-spotted Clay is local but widespread across England, Wales and western Scotland in open and damp broadleaved woodland.

Valerie Pedlow.

© Valerie Pedlow

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

New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings, Rare sightings /

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 16th, 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.

(©Eamonn O’Donnell)

49.288 Epiblema foenella – First Irish record.

General interest, New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings /

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 21st/22nd 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

 

Sloe Pug Pasiphila chloerata – New to Ireland

New to Ireland, Rare moth sightings, Rare sightings /

On the 22nd of June 2021 I was targeting a small stand of Elm (which I had found earlier in the year) for Clouded Magpie Abraxas sylvata, a species I have only seen once many years ago and was keen to find again. The trees are on both sides of the road at the southern end of Brittas Bay, Co. Wicklow (just south of the roadside carpark). My plan was to do a short session of approximately two hours using a 125MV trap west of the road (which I would stay with during the session) and a 20W Actinic CFL trap to the east of the road (T302816). As it turned out, it was a relatively quiet session for moths with the MV getting 72 moths of 38 species and none of my target so I decided to finish at 1.5 hours duration. I then went over to the actinic and went through that trap. Again, nothing major regarding moth numbers or apparently anything of great interest. The last moth at the bottom of the last egg tray, which I nearly missed, was an almost black pug, from what I could see in the torch light. With a hint of green, my initial thought was an extremely dark Green Pug Pasiphila rectangulata at which point I nearly chucked it into the undergrowth but thought better and potted it for later examination.

As it was after 1am and a “school” night, I forgot all about it when I got home. After work the following day, I remembered that I had a moth potted up still in my bag. On looking more closely, I again narrowed it down to a dark Green Pug but the outer edge of the dark bar didn’t have the kink it should have. The abdomen didn’t look right either. Bilberry Pug Pasiphila debiliata was also quickly eliminated owing to the complete lack of its foodplant in the region and being familiar with it, the lack of the classic black dots demarcating the cross bar. Even though the illustration of Sloe Pug in Waring and Townsend didn’t particularly look right, two features did match….that of the un-kinked outer edge of the crossbar and the pink bars on the abdomen. But of course, I knew that couldn’t be possible as we don’t have it in Ireland! Next port of call was Lepiforum (German moth website) which to my amazement had near perfect matches of my moth under Sloe Pug. With confidence levels rising and excitement levels off the scale…..dare I hope! I then posted it on the MothsIreland (FaceBook page) where the general consensus was that I was probably correct but would need to have it examined critically by Ken Bond owing to its significance. Needing people with direct experience of the species, I posted it on “Pugs in Flight tonight” (UK FaceBook group dedicated to pugs), where it was given the thumbs up too. A few months later it was confirmed by Ken Bond as Ireland’s first Sloe Pug.

Having looked again at the trapping site, there is plenty of its foodplant, Blackthorn, quite close by. I did trap again a little south at Buckroney where there is a big patch of the foodplant but no luck. As it is apparently only an occasional visitor to light traps, I won’t give up hope of finding more in future. I plan to target it again this year in an effort to try and find out if it was a once off wanderer or part of an embryonic colonization or perhaps even a long-overlooked resident. According to the Atlas of Britain and Ireland’s Larger Moths, it was not recorded in the UK until 1971 but has been found widely since but again it’s not known if it was overlooked or colonized rapidly.

Thanks to all on the various groups and websites for help and comments and Ken Bond for dissection of this first Irish record. I urge people to target Blackthorn during May- early July to see if this may in fact be an overlooked species.

Christian Osthoff

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