Moth recording in Caithness and Scotland

 

Duncan Williams from the Technical Services Unit (TSU) field station at Lairg acts as County Moth Recorder for Caithness and Sutherland. As such he is responsible for the vetting, validation and processing of moth records from the far north before they are submitted to the various moth recording schemes currently in place. In addition he acts as a repository for records from those families of Lepidoptera not yet incorporated in any national recording scheme.

His main field of expertise lies in the leaf-mining lepidoptera, with a special interest in the diminutive Nepticulidae.

The far north of Scotland has a limited history of moth survey (even for the larger "macrolepidoptera") and his recent discovery of several nepticulid species e.g. Ectoedemia intimella ( on Salix caprea), Stigmella aeneofasciella (on Fragaria vesca and Potentilla erecta ) previously considered to have a much more southern distribution in the UK would indicate that many further unanticipated moth species await discovery in Caithness and Sutherland.

Duncan also identified the rare moth, Swammerdamia passerella in 2002, and has forwarded this as a candidate for UK BAP species.

During 2004 Duncan produced the first modern Scottish record of Singa hamata, discovered at Spinningdale Bog in Sutherland. He also had his Strawberry Spider (Araneus alsine) discovery published in the British Arachnological Society newsletter, and with Clubiona subsultans, he recorded a native pinewood UK BAP species, previously only known in 3 sites in the UK.

For further information about this project contact:

Dr. Janet Dutch
Technical Services Unit
Forest Research
Northern Research Station
Roslin
Midlothian
EH25 9SY

Tel: 0131 445 2176
Fax: 0131 445 5124
E-mail: janet.dutch@forestry.gsi.gov.uk