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

Identification

Usually distinctive. Care required, potential confusion with Mottled Rustic, Rustic and Vine’s Rustic.

If identification is not clear record as 73.0961 Uncertain/Rustic agg.

Recording Method.

Attracted to light, also comes to sugar and flowers.

Life cycle

One generation. Overwinters as a larva. Larvae July to April. Pupates underground.

Larval foodplants

Chickweeds, docks and a wide variety of herbaceous plants.

Habitat

Many lowland habitats including woodland and gardens.

History

First record was in 1974 from the Rothamsted station at Gatehouse of Fleet (VC73), and from then until 1980, eighty records were recorded there. Other RIS data was of five records from Waterside Mains at Keir (VC72), and five from Newton Stewart (VC74) in the same period with a single from Mabie Forest in 1985.

E. F. Hancock had found it in Kilsture Forest (VC74) in 1989. Of the remaining 150 records, the regularly trapped sites at Kirkton, Kirkcudbright and Old Torr produced 110 of them, with the rest of the records coming from a wide scattering of sites across the region.