Red List: Least Concern (LC). GB Status: Common.

Identification

Common Rustic cannot be reliably distinguished from Lesser Common Rustic by external features and species identification requires examination of the genitalia.

Record undissected specimens as 73.1691 Common Rustic agg.

Recording Method.

Attracted to light, also comes to sugar and flowers.

Life cycle

One generation. Overwinters as a larva. Larvae September to May.Pupates in na cocoon underground.

Larval foodplants

Various wild and cultivated grass species, as well as Hairy Wood-rush.

Habitat

A wide range of grassland habitats.

History

Lennon (1863) had found it abundant everywhere around the Dumfries area. Douglas Robinson (1870-71) had noticed it all summer, swarming, and very variable on Almorness (VC73). It also came to sugar. Gordon (1913) found it to be abundant, generally distributed in Wigtownshire, and exceedingly variable during July. Earliest date was 5th July 1899. Archibald Russell (1944) listed it as occurring near Gatehouse of Fleet (VC73) during the years 1942-43.

During 1974-93 at all seven Rothamsted stations it was regularly trapped with good numbers. Due to the difficulty of separating Mesapamea species, the above is as it was recorded but is to be treated with caution.

Then from 1997 to 2010, of all the records claimed as this species, only ten have been proved to be this species by genitalia examination.