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

See also Moth of the Week (30/04/2019)

Identification

Usually distinctive. Sexually dimorphic.

Recording Method

Female nocturnal and is attracted to light. Male active by day, often with rapid erratic flight. Male is readily attracted to pheromone lures, sometimes in numbers, as well as to assembled females.

Life cycle

One generation. Overwinters as a pupa attached to a plant stem at ground level. Larvae May to August.

Larval foodplants

Heather and other woody plants such as Hawthorn, Blackthorn, sallows and birches. Also Meadowsweet and Bramble.

Habitat

Mostly moorland, heathland and bogs.

History 

Lennon (1860) stated he had bred eight on, presumably from larvae he had collected from around Dumfries while out rambling. By 1863, Lennon found it was generally distributed. W. Douglas Robinson (1870-71) had found one larva during August at Cloke Moss (VC73). Gordon (1913) also said it was common and generally distributed on the moors, with males on the wing from 3 pm to 4 pm. On one patch of heather he counted 19 nearly full-fed larvae near Corsemalzie on 18th August 1910. Earliest date was 11th April 1899.

MOGBI (1992) recorded it as widespread across the region, and that is still the case during the first ten years of the 21st century. Larval records are from mid-June to early September with a pupa record for late April.