Also on the 1st (it's taken me this long to recover enough to white this), Mike Hogan and I ran our skinner traps for five hours (22:00-03:00), on Mynydd Aberdar. Each trap was treated separately and in mine, I had forty three species, including:
Neofalcata ericetella, Mompha raschkiella, Scoparia pyralella, Dioryctria abietella, Pyla fusca, 8 Fox Moth, Scorched Wing, Lead Belle, Water Carpet, a Large Yellow Underwing, 17 Glaucous Shears, Light Knot-grass and the Coronet.
Included in the catches in both traps were three of the above Geometrids. There were two in my trap and one in Mike's. Try as I might, I cannot come to any firm conclusion about them, but whatever they were, they were all identical and totally unfamiliar to me. As far as I can see, they were either a form of Yellow Shell, but they also have a resemblance to the Gem. I've looked online and can't find any records of Gem in the country, so is it Yellow Shell??? Comments, please.
Apologies for the size of the photo. Don't know what happened there.
ReplyDeleteInteresting Mark.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it can be Yellow Shell - would be really odd to get three very weird ones on the same night.
I'd say Gem (male) looks closest, but as you say this seems pretty unlikely given lack of any other reports.
The only other possiblities I can think of are Twin-spot Carpet and Oblique Carpet, but neither look right.
How big were they?
It was at the smaller end of the Geo range. I suppose it was marginally larger than a Flame Carpet, but a little smaller than the Dark-barred Twin Spot Carpets we had. Mike reckons there was a report of Gem on Portland on the 3rd May, but nothing since.
ReplyDeleteIf it's new to science, I'm calling it "Evans' Headache".
There was a large influx of Silver Y, on the 1st, but we had none at all up there, though there was a Diamond-back and a Turnip Moth in Mike's trap.
The Silver Y's did reach us - I had 5 in Rhoose on 1/6.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that, Adam. Still no sign of them up here.
ReplyDeleteMark, I'd say your Geo's are the Gem. You didn't keep any of them did you?
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave. No specimens kept, unfortunately. If possible, could you please reduce the size of the photo to something a little more sensible. I'm getting a bit embarrassed by it. Thanks.
ReplyDelete