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

Identification

Usually distinctive.

Recording Method.

Comes sparingly to light. Males fly at dusk around the food plant, often in numbers.

Life cycle

One generation. Overwinters twice as a larva. Larvae June to May. Pupates underground.

Larval foodplants

Bracken is the main food plant.

Habitat

Open woodland and scrub where bracken is present..

History 1860-2010

Alexander Somerville of Glasgow (1858) in his list dated 4th September of ‘Captures near Moffat,’ caught one on 26th July. He goes on to say he only sugared three times, but also that he had swept his net. Lennon (1863) had a record for Dalskairth, Kirkcudbrightshire, but stated it was “rather scarce.” Gordon (1913) had found one on a grass stem in wood on 11th June 1911 and on the side of a burn at dusk, 16th July, 1911, both near Corsemalzie, Wigtownshire.

MOGBI (1983) had only one 10km square post 1960 record, which was of one caught at the Rothamsted station at Penninghame (VC74) in July 1976; this being the only record caught by this method. Since then, it had been trapped in Kilsture Forest (VC74) in 1989 and Kirroughtree Forest and Bargaly Lodge (VC73) in 1991.

From 1992 to 2013 it was recorded annually in small numbers mainly in VC73, with some in VC72, from widespread sites. There are only four records for Wigtownshire, two Victorian, then singly in 1976 and 1989.