Status
.....Formerly a regular migrant to south-eastern parts of the UK, White-point
has colonised many southern areas in recent years. The change in this
moth's fortunes has been pretty incredible, with huge numbers of records
now coming annually from some south-eastern counties.
The range expansion and colonisation includes Nottinghamshire and county
records have increased greatly as a consequence over the past two or
three years. But the moth's arrival is not without controversy and the
separation of White-point Mythimna
albipuncta from Clay Mythimna ferrago is
questionable
on the basis of almost identical similarities between the genitalia of
both Mythimna
albipuncta and M. ferrago and that
albipunctata may indeed be a continental subspecies of ferrago.
A single attracted to MV light at Broadholme on August 28th 2008 (Gray,
M.)
is the first county record, although this ecord is not currently
accepted by the county recorder on the basis of site location and
genitalia differences stated above. A second followed at Elkesley on September 12th 2021 (Coombes,
P.) and then East Bridgford (Reece, J. and
Reece, L.). There were more records during 2023, including records
from Keyworth, Underwood,
East Bridgeford again, Mansfield, Market
Warsop and Misson Carr, and since 2024, it has become increasingly
common, with sites now occasionally seeing double-figure counts.
A note on Broadholme records:
Broadholme is in vice county VC56 of Nottinghamshire (which is covered
by www.eakringbirds.com), but not in the administrative county of
Nottinghamshire on which the county's moth records are based by
the county macromoth recorder. As such, no Broadholme records appear in
any county reports, but they are officially recognised by Butterfly
Conservation as being Nottinghamshire records. |
