Subject: Re: Recording, habitat destruction and collecting

From: Dave Chesmore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 10:39:01 +000

I agree with most of John Murray's posting.  However, he states:

"I am acutely conscious of the fact that the only species where you
need to convince county recorders in this way are precisely those
you least want to kill: i.e. the very rare ones."

In my experience, it is not the very rare species our recorder wants
verified, it is species of interest because of their distribution or
changes in distribution.  One example from 1995 is the Dotted Rustic
(Rhyacia simulans) which has become widespread since 1980 but
is now declining in Yorkshire.  I was one of the few people who
recorded it and the Country Recorder wants to see my voucher
specimen because it can easily be mis-identified.

With regard to Pugs, my main problem is distinguishing the melanic
forms.  I would put the list of difficult species at over 20.

Dave Chesmore
Dept. of Electronic Engineering
University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX
Tel: +482 465062;  Fax: +482 466664

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From: Dave Chesmore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 10:30:17 +000

Reply to Bart Vanholder:

Nice one - that is exactly what I have been saying since the debate
started.

I was recently at a 2 day workshop on the use of invertebrates as
bioindicators and everyone there was well aware of the importance of
voucher specimens, especially in Coleoptera, Diptera and moths.
Little was said of butterflies except a very good talk on the Northern
Brown Argus (Aricia artaxerxes) by Sam Ellis from Houghall
College in Durham.

Dave Chesmore