Great ‘egg-pectations’ for survival of rare moth in the Cairngorms
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
There is the ‘egg-pectation’ of good news with a novel first ever release aimed at safeguarding a very rare moth.
A total of 750 dark bordered beauty moth eggs have been released into a specially selected site in the Cairngorms National Park.
Dr Helen Taylor, conservation programme manager at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said, “This is definitely a first for us.
“Last year, we released dark bordered beauty moth caterpillars into the wild and saw some success.
“This year, we have over 3,500 eggs in our breeding facility at the Highland Wildlife Park.
“This is fantastic news but looking after caterpillars is very involved and we cannot raise them in the thousands.
“This is an animal that spends 10 months of its 12-month life cycle hidden away as an egg and we’re really excited to see what kind of success we have with this release approach.
“We’ll be repeating the process with another 750 eggs right before they start hatching in May.
“Working to reverse species decline is crucial as we face a global biodiversity crisis. Invertebrates, like dark bordered beauty moths, play important roles in ecosystems.
“Thanks to our partners and support from funders and other conservation champions, we can make a difference for these often-overlooked species.”
The work is being carried out by the Rare Invertebrates in the Cairngorms (RIC) partnership.
Following the egg releases, the team will also be releasing caterpillars and adults later in the year.
Meanwhile, some individuals will remain in the breeding programme in an attempt to produce as many eggs as possible to enable future releases to other sites.
Suitable habitat sites for the species are fragmented with large distances between them, meaning these moths are not currently able to disperse to new sites themselves.
As part of habitat management efforts, RIC partners have been undertaking surveys to find new sites of suckering aspen and working with landowners to try and help create better habitat for the moths to be released into.
During the releases the wildlife conservation charity’s team found an egg which may have been from the individuals that were released last year.
Dr Taylor commented: “If this is a dark bordered beauty egg, it would mean some of the caterpillars released last year survived into adulthood and bred.
“We can’t be certain in this case as some other moth species have similar eggs so, together with partners, we will continue to monitor the sites and hopefully in future we will see evidence of the released dark bordered beauty moths producing new generations in the wild.”
Tom Prescott, head of conservation with Butterfly Conservation Scotland, said: “This is an exciting step forward in the recovery of one of the UK’s rarest moths.
“The moth is currently confined to just three isolated and small populations in Scotland and one in England so it is essential we try and establish it at a new site.”
This work is possible thanks to the Cairngorms National Park Authority, Cheeky Panda, and players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
It is supported by the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, managed by NatureScot.
The dark bordered beauty moth conservation breeding for release project runs in collaboration with the RIC project, a partnership between Butterfly Conservation Scotland, RSPB Scotland, the CNPA, RZSS, Buglife Scotland and NatureScot.
