Sir, How Do You Hang...

Not a question I'm often asked (in fact, just once that I can recall) but it can make all the difference if you're trying to identify a small, rather nondescript moth. Here's a pic of the moth in question, seen here resting on my microscope cover after I botched trying to pot it from the ceiling

Obviously it's one of the pugs, but which one? Well, it has a particularly large discal spot and a rather lengthy abdomen, but other than that...meh, not a whole lot to go on really. I made the decision to pin it and properly identify it rather than boot it back out of the window.

One week later...

Tonight I suddenly recalled the pinned moth hiding beneath the setting strips. Wing markings really were too poorly developed for me to make much sense of them. Happily, it being a male, I decided to grab my copy of British & Irish Pug Moths and compare my moth's naughty bits to the illustrations within. Males have a heavily sclerotized plate on the underside of the eighth abdominal tergite. The shape and form of this plate differs consistently between the species, so should enable a robust ID. 

First to brush away the covering of scales from the tip of the abdomen - oops, make that from the tip of the detached abdomen. Anyway, a few minutes later and I had the exposed abdominal plate in full view, and what a view it was too!

Either my eyes have worsened or the whole thing is quite heavily skewed off to the left. Is that normal, I thought these things were meant to be symmetrical? Well, flicking through the illustrations I discovered a perfect match, happy days!

Turns out that my moth is a male Golden-rod Pug Eupithecia virgaureata, the first one I've (knowingly) seen and my 1070th species of moth in Britain, nice! And conclusive too, I suspect county moth recorders must absolutely dread receiving pug records without photographic back-up.  

The CMR commented that this was his commonest pug last year. My reply was that it was probably my commonest ignored pug last year.

It's turned quite warm up here (at last!) beginning on Saturday. I was one of about 43 folks who descended upon Uig Beach for a beach clean up event, no veggie pies which was a bit disappointing but I made up for it by quaffing extra free beers. I haven't managed to get out again since, though a quick walk to the shop and back called for a very brief detour into the woods where I found...insects! Seriously, there have been hardly any flies so far this spring so it was a pleasure to see various hovers and blowflies buzzing around the flowers and bathing on leaves/trunks. Not that I thought to bring a net with me, so no jump in the species tally yet. Did manage a few though

Notiophilus biguttatus - a springtail predator

Oiceoptoma thoracicum attending a Song Thrush nestling, presumably ragged by a Hoodie

Acanthosoma haemorrhoidale Hawthorn Shieldbug - though they prefer Rowan up here

Arse end of Dysaphis crataegi - an aphid that galls Hawthorn leaves

Like this...

Elasmucha grisea - only the third species of shieldbug I've encountered up here so far

Anthophila fabriciana Nettle-tap larva

Looking forward to getting out there for a whole day, now that it's warming up. I have a couple of things to do tomorrow morning but might see if I can take the rest of the day off. My other day off this week is on Thursday, but I'm leading a Skye Nature Group outing to Brothers Point for rock-pooling shenanigans, so will be well away from the square. The light trap is going on tonight (I had it running two nights ago but forgot to put the eggboxes back in, a small haul of six Noctuids for my efforts being the total - serves me right).

I've had these guys playing in the back of my mind whilst writing this post, hope you enjoy them too

As an aside, I think Golden-rod Pug should be renamed Goldenrod Pug. The larval foodplant is Ragwort (Senecio) and Goldenrod (Solidago). That's Goldenrod, not Golden-rod. I've checked that I have this right. Stace, the botanist's bible, says Goldenrod. Poland says Goldenrod. Rose says Goldenrod. Collins says Goldenrod. In fact, they all say Goldenrod! Interestingly, UKMoths and other moth-orientated websites say Golden-rod - which just goes to show that many moth folks need to spend a bit less time at light bulbs and a bit more time understanding the natural history of their chosen subject.