Phew. Completely unanticipated number and variety of bathroom moth trap visitors. I’ve sat in that room late at night on a couple of nights in this past week and been dumbfounded mostly at how I managed to miss this extraordinary parade most of my life. These moths have not just started to visit because I’m now looking, afterall. Of those many moths a number are currently unidentified. Most but not all are small micro moths.
There were several species I’ve not recorded in the bathroom before:
- Small Magpie (eurrypara hortulata)
- Diamond Back Moth (plutella xylostella)
- Heart and Dart (argrotis exclamationis)
- L-album Wainscot (mythimna l-album)
- Clouded Silver (lomographa temerata)
- Tawny-speckled Pug (eupithecia icterata)*
- Slender Pug (eupithecia tenuiata)*
- Foxglove Pug (eupithecia puchellata)”
- Bee Moth (aphomia sociella) M & F
- Adela croesella*
- Meal Moth (pyralis farinalis)
- Barred Yellow (cidaria fulvata)
- Marbled White Spot (protodeltote pygarga)
- Broom Moth (melancra pisi)
- Willow Beauty (peribatodes rhomboidaria)
- Magpie Moth (abraxas grossulariata)
- Least Carpet (idaea rusticata atrosignaria)
- Carcina quercana
- Common Rustic (mesapamea secalis) or Lesser Common Rustic*
And the following moths were back for the first time this year:
- Common Emerald (hemithea aestivaria)
- Orange Moth (angerona prunaria) mottled variant
- Large Yellow Underwing (noctua pronuba)
- Apple (yponomeuta malinellus) or Bird-cherry Ermine*
- Garden Grass-veneer (chrystoteuchia culmella)
The ones marked * have an amount of uncertainty attached to the ID
Worth mentioning also in the context of this being a summary of the month’s activity are the moths that had already appeared in May but were still around in what is now last moth:
- Phylctaenia coronata
- Udea olivalis
- Emmelina monodactyla
- Brimstone Moth (opisthograptis luteolata)
- Small Dusty Wave (idaea seriata)
