Southern Marsh Orchids
Friday 30 September 2016
A weevil new for Wales
A couple of weeks ago I was in town for the Roald Dahl celebrations, which were fun but hectic - I've never seen the city centre so packed with people. While we took a breather in Bute Park I spotted some unfamiliar mines on one of the narrow-leaved willows (possibly Salix fragilis) growing near the castle.
On checking the leafmines.co.uk website back home it became obvious they were the work of one of the Isochnus weevils, but the website told me there are two species on willow which are indistinguishable on mine and larval characters. I emailed Rob Edmunds, who runs the website, and he said the adults are easy to rear - just wrap the leaf petiole in damp tissue and leave in a pot til they hatch. It didn't take long...this week two adults emerged and I was able to confirm, using Morris' RES keys, that these are Isochnus sequensi.
This species was not listed on Adrian Fowles' weevils of Wales online checklist (see here). I emailed Adrian and he has now confirmed this is the first record for Wales of this weevil, which has a mainly eastern distribution in the UK.
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Fantastic. Well done, George!
ReplyDeleteThanks Annie.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi George,
ReplyDeletejust to let you know we've been having a look at "new for Wales" species in the database for 2016 and there are 4 others of yours which are new to the LERC databases this year (not sure if they are truly new for Wales as we haven't checked with any of the national schemes):
Cacoxenus indagator
Andricus aries f. agamic
Trioza vitreoradiata
Aceria ilicis
Keep up the good work!
Elaine (SEWBReC)
Thanks Elaine. This must be what happens when you start getting into galls! I think there is another record of Andricus aries but without the 'f. agamic' bit in the species name.
ReplyDeleteExcellent find George!
ReplyDelete