A mind blowing quartet

Still having to pinch myself that this set of moths were all nestled in my humble back garden moth trap...halcyon days indeed.
Loxostege sticticalis


Pempelia obductella


Sciota adelphella


Oncocera semirubella

Going dotty

Been seeing all sorts of spots before my eyes of late both attracted to the garden trap and with rearing success: here are a few of the recent monochrome marvels...

Ethmia dodecea

Yponomeuta cagnagella bred ex larva on Spindle

Yponomeuta evonymella

Yponomeuta plumbella bred ex larva on Spindle

Feelin' hot hot hot...

Well yes the weather is fantastic but the mothing is also red hot or is it a purple patch, anyway here's a few of the highlights from recent days, including several new additions to the garden list, pushing it to the cusp of 700 species...

Evergestis limbata


Schoenobius gigantella


Lozotaeniodes formosanus


Ethmia dodecea


Yarrow Plume

Self-assembly

Found the larval case of this moth - Psyche casta - a few weeks ago, potted it up hoping to rear through.

I was more than pleased when this beautiful female, who really is nothing more than a glorified egg-sac, duly emerged a couple of days ago, as my mind immediately turned to the possibility of assembling a male to her.





This also turned out to be a success, with just a single male coming to the female who had been placed in a net bag in the garden (the same net bag that is used for various synthetic Clearwing lures)


Psyche casta - male. Assembled to newly emerged female (above)

Mines by the dozen

Literally dozens of mines around now from a wide range of species and food plants...

Callisto denticulella on Apple


Parornix anglicella on Hawthorn

Phyllonorycter coryli on Hazel

Parornix devoniella on Hazel

Leucospilapteryx omissella on Mugwort

The Holy Grail: found....

The adults of this species have been turning up at the back garden trap every July for several years now, giving a strong indication of a breeding population close by. However, I have been searching for years to find the incontrovertible evidence of breeding - the larvae.

So it was that a few weeks ago, I stumbled across this solitary Yponomeuta larva, that looked that little bit different, it being alone also raised my expectations as this species gets all Greta Garbo as it matures, unlike many of its congeners.



 A few days later, pupation and again, cross-referencing images on the Internet (the few I could find anyway) raised my expectations even further, until on Sunday 7th July, the adult emerged confirming my hopes and suspicions and ticking off one of my Holy Grails.

New UK foodplant for miner

As tentatively reported back in May: http://kentmicromoths.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/early-stages-phyllonorycter.html

I found what appeared to be the mine of Phyllonorycter oxyacanthae on Pyracantha, 
which to that point was not recorded from this foodplant in the UK.

The adult has now emerged, confirming the ID, and as such a new foodplant.