It was expected that the same downward trend would be revealed and indeed it has, with a decline seemingly gaining momentum as the years pass.

If we first look at just the rare species produced in the table below and add the combined totals of RDB, Nationally notable, local and common moths together, we get a total of 164 species. This species total includes Vine's Rustic, which has now been assigned the status of 'ungraded' by the county recorder, but which has been removed from the list below.

Looking further, we found that 64/164 (39.02%) of these species have not occurred at Sherwood Forest since 1916. In more recent decades, it was found that 87/164 (53.04%) of Sherwood's rarer macro moths have occurred since 1980, but the total is lower, at just 61/164 (37.19%) for those moths which have occurred since 2000. So the current trend is downward.

Historically, the Sherwood Forest NNR and surrounding sites, have recorded approximately 471 species of macro moths. Out of this total, 316/471 (67.09%) species have been recorded since 2000. This means that despite moth trapping at Sherwood Forest being at its highest recording level since the 1980's, a total of 155/471 (32.91%) macro moth species appear to have been lost since the turn of this century. That's over a quarter of all Sherwood's known species that have gone.

Sourcing records

Many of the historical last dates for each species, were originally sourced from J.W. Carr's book "The invertebrate fauna of Nottinghamshire" published in 1916, which often gave no actual dates of occurrence.

In these cases (and if the species has not been recorded in the county since) then we have used the < symbol, signifying that the date is before 1916 (the publication date of Carr's book).

The grading system used

The grading system used to determine the status of macro moths within Nottinghamshire, follows that used by Sheila Wright in her publications "The conservation status of lepidoptera in Nottinghamshire" second edition published in 2001 and third edition published in 2011.

Grade 1 Includes all Red Data Book and Nationally Notable Group A species recorded in Nottinghamshire since 1980, together with all Nationally Notable Group B species recorded form three or fewer 10Km squares in Nottinghamshire since 1980.

Grade 2 Includes all Nationally Notable Group B species recorded from more than three 10Km squares in Nottinghamshire since 1980, together with all Nationally Local species recorded from three or fewer 10Km aquares in Nottinghamshire since 1980.

Grade 3 Includes all Nationally Local species recorded from more than three 10Km squares in Nottinghamshire since 1980, together with all Nationally Common species recorded from three or fewer 10Km squares in Nottinghamshire since 1980. Note that no nationally common species have been included in the list.

To help things further, we have colour coded the national status of each species in line with the colours shown in the key on the left. The last record column refers to the Sherwood Forest NNR area and not the whole of Nottinghamshire and may now be out of date.