Thursday 9 August 2018

Two gen dets

I have never dissected a Common Rustic agg. from Dingestow before, but the appearance of a tiny black individual with strongly white stigmas at MV last night (8/8) tempted me to try for Lesser Common Rustic.  Sure enough, its Clavus was weakly sclerotized, with no sign of teeth at all.  There appear to be just 1 or 2 previous gen. det. records of this species from VC35, although I don't think that anyone else is checking Common Rustics.

 

More genuinely notable was a Caryocolum that came to actinic at Dingestow Court on 26/7.  I wasn't sure which member of this tricky genus it would be, but dissection revealed the very distinctive male genitalia of C. fraternella.  Although this is a common species in much of England, it has very few Welsh records and was new for VC35.


Pretty than either was my first Orange Swift of the year.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.