Identification

Care required; very similar to Common Rustic and Lesser Common Rustic, though both these species have a later flight period. The centrally-placed basal streak on the forewing, with a faint crescent-shaped mark on the hindwing should help identification.

Recording Method.

Attracted to light, also comes to sugar and flowers.

Life cycle

One generation. Overwinters as a fully grown larva during July to March, with pupation among leaf litter.

Larval foodplants

Reed Canary-grass and Wavy Hair-grass and other grasses.

Habitat

Fens, marshes, damp grassland, damp woodland and margins of ponds and lochs.

History

Buchanan White of Perth (1895) listed it as occurring in Colvend and Southwick parishes (VC73). Gordon (1913) however, had only one record, one on a scotch fir bud on his front drive at Corsemalzie, Wigtownshire on 1st July 1906.

There were a dozen records during 1976-82 from Caerlaverock, Waterside Mains and Newton Stewart Rothamsted stations.

It was 1994 before it was recorded again, and from then to 2010, there were thirty records mainly from Kirkton and Castle Loch at Lochmaben, with the rest from a small scattering of sites across the region.