Moths of Central and East Gippsland
A good fall amounting to 43mm, and time to fire up the lamp to see if the rain moths had reacted. Sure enough, one soon came in, a nice male Abantiades atripalpis.
It was however the only one in a relatively short session, with the only other moths braving the rain being a few Noctuids, mainly Proteuxoa tortisigna which were quite numerous.
With the nights drawing in it was time after a long pause to fire up the moth light. Moths were quite sparse, mirroring the last season’s records of invertebrates generally, although black field crickets were in large numbers and made themselves a nuisance swarming to the light. Of most interest was an undescribed Cryptophasa species, the second record from the garden, previously recorded in February 2010.
The most numerous species was the first of the Hepialids to show up, Elhamma australasiae.
Asura cervicalis is a little unusual, A. lydia is more commonly to the light.
Always nice to see an emerald, Chlorocoma melocrossa.
Circopetes obtusata is a regular from the garden, a female.
A small Crambid, Hednota pleniferellis, the larvae feed on grass.
A few other species common for this time of the year came in, but numbers expected for the night were way down, a worrying trend that is being experienced world-wide.