Macro-moth atlas and recording bred moths

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stevehind
Posts: 2908
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:44 am
Location: Higher Poynton, Cheshire

Macro-moth atlas and recording bred moths

Post by stevehind »

It was another good Moth Recorders Conference yesterday in Birmingham. I am always surprised at how few Cheshire moth-ers attend, you really are missing out on an excellent away day.

A lot was mentioned at the conference regarding the new macro-moth atlas, which has been delayed again, until summer 2019. Butterfly Conservation are still struggling with many potentially dubious records. They are now mainly working at trying to correct those records where there is conflict between the stage and date, for example, an adult December Moth in April, as such records show up as odd flight times on the charts. A lot of these conflicts have arisen when moths have been bred and the date provided could be either when the egg/larvae/pupae was found but the stage is input as adult, as this is often the stage when the moth has been determined. In future, could you check to ensure that when inputting reared moths that the date is always when the egg/larvae/pupae was found and the stage reflects this early stage and that the date is not when the adult emerged. Please include the emergence date in the comment field. If you didn’t note the collection date then input either the month (00/MM/YYYY) or year (00/00/YYYY). Steve Holmes has already checked the macro-moths but I’ll need to have a look at the micro-moths for such conflicts once all the 2018 records have been processed and the annual report issued.

Regards
Steve
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