Bordered Ermel

Hi again Lisa, after several hours of research I came across this from the British Natural History Museum http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/biodiversity/uk-biodiversity/uk-species/species/ethmia_bipunctella.html From now on I am going to call this a Bordered Ermel. Right now I have to correct 40 spottings. I have also informed Chris Jonko of this new-found name so he can amend his website http://www.lepidoptera.eu/

Hi Lisa, it seems you may have uncovered a bag of worms. I think this may be a moth which which J,Gorneau gave me the ID from here http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/species.php?hodges=986 Now, putting Ethmia bipunctella into my European ID pages I find this http://www.lepidoptera.eu/show.php?ID=1854&country=GB with no mention of an English Common Name, and this http://ukmoths.org.uk/species/ethmia-bipunctella/ which gives the Viper's Bugloss plant as the host species as you suggest. Now for the confusing bit, I did a Common Name search for Viper's Bugloss and came up with this http://www.lepidoptera.eu/show.php?ID=1063&country=GB Ouch! I may have seen this also but living in my long list of as yet unidentified moths. I think this goes to highlight the fact that Common Names are just that and should not be used for IDs. There are many instances of Common Names being used for different species in different countries, and even in different parts of the same country. The Scientific name is the only field which should be used for positive identification as it is the nearest to uniqueness that we have, although I know of at least one Genera name which is used for more than one family! Over here moth is rarely used as part of an "official" Common Name just as Bird is not either (except in cases like Pussmoth, Hawkmoth, Blackbird, Mockingbird).. The Category should be sufficient to separate the two, though I do try to put moth as a tag on all moth spottings. It is worth remembering that, in Europe at least, a large proportion of moths do not have common names at all and where they do they differ in almost every country. My take is that a Common Name s what is used by each individual and nothing more. It is worth noting that terms like Seagull, Daisy and Cabbage White are extremely commonly used but are actually words which each cover a host of different species.