Tuesday, 3 December 2013

Depressaria radiella/heraclei? otherwise known as the Parsnip moth

This one had a leg missing so it was euthanased.  The lines are 8mm apart and I measured the wl as 13mm.  Very shiny and flat with spots on the termen and a pale V with dark streaking on the inner part of the wing so I hope my id is correct.  OK, so you lot have been catching loads of them…
What is behind the name change?  What does heraclei mean and am I right in thinking the radiella is something to do with the streak pattern or that they are born with one leg short and crawl round in circles?
Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. Ina4 December 2013 at 10:31

    I asked a similar question in Lancs and was told put Parsnip in mapmate and it will sort the name out!
    Here is my question - Can anyone throw any light on the official/scientific name of Parsnip moth please. I have found 3 so far, D.radiella, D.pastinacella & D.hereclei all these have the number 672...but D.olerella(681) is also called Parsnip but not much trace of it in ukmoths etc.
    Here is the answer - Hi Ina. We get them at Heysham and from memory they can be entered on MapMate as Parsnip Moth and the rest of it comes up on the screen although not near MaoMate copy at the moment. As many have found out some of the stuff cant be entered by English name e.g. nettle tap has to be 'fabric' or similar!!
    Does this help? Well not unless you have mapmate!
    Have you got it in the freezer Liz? I would get it looked at if you have as it looks very brown, but that could just be the photo.

    ReplyDelete
  2. lizsnell4 December 2013 at 18:31

    I thought it more like daucella but wrong time of year according to one chart I looked at.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)