Cornwall Moth Group news, notices and reports

Check out the latest news abount Biritsh moths.

 

Cornwall Moth database

Article by Tony James added Friday, 15th April 2011

You might like to know that I've now broken the 200,000 records entered into the County Database (between 2005 and 2010), and I am now on the last few 2010 datasets which have been sent in to me. If you haven't sent your data in for 2010 yet, please send it as soon as you can, as I will be sending in a full update of our data to the National Databases by the end of April. Depending on how much extra data I get, and what work I will need to do to enter it, I may be able to enter yours, but it will be entered in "First come, first entered" order, so get it to me as quickly as you can.
 
Older datasets will be entered as and when I can after the 2010 data, but priority will initially be on 2005 data, which I've been working on recently. Also, to speed up data entry, please reply to requests for clarification promptly, otherwise your data may be moved down the queue so I can get on with another dataset.

 

The Provisional Atlas of the UK's Larger Moths now available

Article by Jayne Herbert added Friday, 15th April 2011

This Atlas is the first publication of its kind for almost 30 years. A culmination of four and a half years of the Moths Count project and the National Moth Recording Scheme (NMRS), it contains the most up-to-date distribution maps for 868 macro-moth species.

A4 and paperback, the publication features more than 400 pages of moth maps, showing both historical (pre 2000) and current (2000 onwards) records from the NMRS database.

Available now from Butterfly Conservation at only £20.00 plus p&p (United Kingdom only)

 

Cornwall Moth Group AGM minutes

Article by Jayne Herbert added Sunday, 10th April 2011

For those of us that missed the recent Cornwall Moth Group AGM, Phil Boggis has kindly provided the minutes. It is available to download in PDF format below.

 

Chequered Bar (Barea Asbolaea) First For Britain, Adventive?

Article by Laurie Oakes added Wednesday, 16th February 2011

We have had the occasional exciting catches of single rare migrants. We have now discovered our most notable catch has lain hidden in our records under a mistaken identity and we have, to date, caught over 180 of them!

Here at Buryas Bridge near Penzance catches of an unidentified micro started in 2004 with a tentative identification made by Frank Johns in 2006 as Depressaria Pimpinellae. None of us were sure but no closer identification could be made. During 2008 we recorded 36. In 2009 66 were recorded and 2010 produced a total of 78.

Recently, Frank made genitalia slides from the moth and to his amazement found it did not match D. Pimpinellae at all, nor any other UK moth he could find!. Identification was eventually made by Martin Honey and Kevin Tuck at the British Museum as Barea Asbolaea from Tasmania.

Currently we think that B. Asbolaea originated at nearby Trewidden gardens where plant importation from the antipodes started in the 1860s.

This has been an exiting but strange experience for us. It has been like winning a competition you entered 3 years ago but one that you did not know you had entered.

Next spring; please keep a lookout for this moth as we feel sure it may well be found elsewhere in Cornwall.

More more information see our Reports and Papers page

 

 

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