Thursday 15 August 2013

Epinotia nisella ?

Looking for confirmation of id please.
Is this the start of a bit of fun over the next few weeks with the very variable Epinotia nisella, 7mm wing length.


3 comments:

  1. Unfortunately Epinotia nisella has been re-split into 2 species. If you see any russet brown in the wing, then it is definitely nisella, but this grey form can either be nisella or cinereana and to id it is all down to counting cornuti in the aedeagus under a microscope. Let me know if you want that done.

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  2. Thanks for that Peter, that's really cheered me up!Aaarrrgh!
    To be serious are changes in taxonomy/splits published anywhere? Some of these micros have more than one name, even finding them on Mapmate can be a pain sometimes.
    Unfortunately this moth has gone, so in this case how would I record it?

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  3. Would you like me to contact Mapmate and get aggregate added for these two species? What is currently happening is that the Bradley and Fletcher numbers are being revised over to European numbers and scientific names changing also to European format. So Archips podana becomes Archips podanus and so on. The new Micro book has pre-empted this a little and is currently the only publication to use the new format, but I know John Langmaid and others are nearing completion of the revisions. Then it really will become confusing. So nothing published yet. Regarding cinereana and nisella, about a hundred years ago it was two species, then lumped together and now DNA has separated them again. As always, if you are happy to retain the moths, I am happy to use my microscope to get an id for you.

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