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| Phyllonorycter junoniella mine on Cowberry |
The species is already on the VC41 list, but the only record is from way back in 1926 (F. Norton) and is from Welsh St Donat's on the Vale coast - a long long way from any Cowberry. Dave provided the following information about this early record:
"Norton's records come from Hallett's annotated fauna of Glamorgan, and it is possible that there may have been a specimen but it's not one that Jake & I looked for during the research stage.
That said, looking at the record in Hallett's list, it does look to say "Lithocolletis racoiniella Scott" - which we obviously misread as Lithocolletis vacciniella (Stainton). There is no name in Kloet and Hinks, and as far as I can tell the only Lithocolletis that Scott described is irradiella (now lautella). Indeed there is a mis-translation on tinternet that reads vacciniella as racciniella - but Hallett wasn't using ORS software to work out his species names, and it is unlike him to get spelling and authority wrong, so a real mystery."
So, not officially a first county record, but probably the first genuine record.
Hallett was pretty meticulous with his translations (in both his LofG 1928 & 1952 versions) and Norton was, by in large, very honest with his records. I would say that Hallett read what he thought was P. junoniella. As Dave has already stated, a lot gets lost in translations of species, both Dave & myself took years to fully get to grips with what was written by Hallett et al. In our copy of Hallett's 1952 annotated Leps of Glam, we translated B&F328 Lithocolletis junoiella (Zell.) on p89 & L. vacciniella (Scott) p90 as P. junoiella. I have our complete translations of all Hallett's annotated works in the MofG archive at mine if you wish to look at it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the offer Jake, but I think the only way to get to the bottom of the mystery would be to locate the original specimen, if it exists. Are Norton's specimens in the NMW collections?
ReplyDeleteGeorge, other than the Macro's, we unfortunately only made reference to the Tortrix & Pyralid moths in our "VC41 Specimens in NMW" list. So unless Dave has a list for the other Micro species, you'll have to go in to the NMW and see for yourself. See Mike Wilson or Mark Pavett.
ReplyDeleteI visited the Museum this morning, and sadly there are no Norton specimens in the collection. Having looked again at what Hallett wrote I think there is enough doubt to remove the original record. Hallett wrote "Lithocolletis racoinella Scott" not "vacciniella Sta.". So whether he miscopied the name from correspondence from Norton? Either way, without a specimen we will never know for certain.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for checking that Dave. Mark Parsons sent me a link to an online World Catalogue of Gracillariidae, hosted by a Belgian website, but there was no mention of racoinella or anything similar to that.
ReplyDeleteJust found the publication of the record in the Cardiff Nat's transactions - Hallett did mis-transcribe the name, so it was "vacciniella Scott" in the original publication, so MoG is at least accurate for the info presented and published even if we do now think Norton was mistaken!
ReplyDeleteOk, good to have that little conundrum cleared up. Thanks.
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