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

Identification

Usually distinctive, Care required, potential confusion with Mottled Beauty.

Recording method

Attracted to light.

Life cycle

One protracted generation. Overwinters as a small larva on the foodplant. Larvae  July to June. Pupates in a cocoon attached to the foodplant or in plant debris.

Larval foodplants

A wide range of broadleaved trees, climbers and shrubs.

Habitat

Woodland, scrub, hedgerows, parks and gardens.

History

First recorded for Dumfries and Galloway in 1903 for VC74at Alticry Lodge by Garraway, in 1904 for VC73 near Dumfries by Clutton but only in 1974 for VC72 at Ecclefechan by Radford.

J. Garraway informed Gordon (1919) that he had taken two on tree trunks below Alticry Lodge, Wigtownshire, in July, 1903. W. G. Clutten spent three days near Dumfries in mid-July 1904 and found the Willow Beauty.

The first of the form perfumaria (Newman, 1865) which is of a slate-grey in colour, was found on moorland near Dumfries in mid-July 1904. Further records have occurred.