early moths

[Martin Honey]

Dear All

The currently mild February weather brought back thoughts of fieldwork -
hence a visit to Ashtead Common, Surrey, UK last night in the company of
Mark Parsons. We were only there for about one and a half hours but a search
of scrub and tree trunks, by torchlight, revealed the following species:

several male Early moth Theria primaria (Haworth)
several male Dotted Border Agriopis marginaria (Fabricius)
several male Spring Usher Agriopis leucophaearia ([D. & S.]), plus a pair
"in cop" and
the tortricid Tortricodes alternella ([D. & S.]).

We also ran an MV trap in one of the rides and recorded:

over 50 male Spring Usher showing a range of forms
several more Torticodes alternella
a male Small Brindled Beauty Apocheima hispidaria ([D. & S.]) and
a male Pale Brindled Beauty Apocheima pilosaria ([D. & S.])

A male of the last mentioned species had also been seen earlier in the year,
on 12 January 1998, in the grounds of the Natural History Museum, London, -
the first moth recorded there this year.

No new records among them but good to see them all 

Martin
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Martin R. Honey CBiol MIBiol, Linnaean Butterfly Project
Biodiversity Division, Department of Entomology
The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road
London, SW7 5BD, Great Britain
TELEPHONE: 0171 938 8735     International: 44 171 938 8735
FAX:       0171 938 8937     International: 44 171 938 8937
EMAIL:     M.Honey at nhm.ac.uk
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