Now is the time to look for the alien micromoth Pachyrhabda steropodes and there has been a spate of records in the last week from Carmarthenshire after I prompted local moth`ers to look for it. It occurs on soft shield-fern, a species growing on slightly base-rich soils and is often associated with hart`s-tongue fern and a cover of ash trees in woods or hedgerows. Soft shield-fern is not rare in Ceredigion.
Where established this tiny moth (at first glance it can look like a pale-golden gnat to the uninitiated) can engage in courtship swarms of the host fern, but where newly-established it can occur as singletons or in small numbers. In dull weather it can be flushed by gently tapping the fern with a stick (or your foot) - it usually returns to the same or nearby spot.
Later in the summer/autumn/early winter, the elongated larval spinnings distinguish it from other fern spore-eating micros.
It is spreading really well in SW England (where it originated from gardens in Abbotsbury) and it has now been found in most parts of Carmarthenshire (it was first seen at the National Botanical Gardens at Llanarthne in the Tywi Valley in the early 2000s). It is also spreading well in Pembrokeshire.
Come on, Ceredigion recorders! - it must be in south Ceredigion by now (it`s in the Teifi Valley area of Carms).
Above: larval spinnings on soft shield-fern and, below, an adult moth.
