Red List: Least Concern (LC). GB Status: Nationally Scarce B (Nb).

Identification

Usually distinctive. Care required, potential confusion with Coast Dart and Archer’s Dart.

Photo required for record acceptance due to rarity status.

Recording Method.

Attracted to light, also comes to sugar and flowers.

Life cycle

One generation. Overwinters as a larva. Larvae August to May. Pupates in sand

Larval foodplants

A wide variety of strandline plants.

Habitat

Coastal sand-dunes, especially close to the tide-line.

History

J. Garraway informed Gordon (1913) that he had taken one at sugar at the end of the Drumblair Road, Luce Bay (VC74), on 15th July 1905.

Although this species did not appear in the Moths of Great Britain & Ireland, Bernard Skinner in mid-August 1987, had found the larvae to be not uncommon along the shoreline from Sandhead to Torrs Warren in sand under plants of Atriplex laciniata, thus confirming Garraway’s record.