The holy grail of British moths is a real bolt from the blue | The Independent The holy grail of British moths is a real bolt from the blue As a Lepidoptera lover I have longed to see it for years without success Wednesday 9 October 2013 16:50 BST Click to follow The Independent Online The uncommonly blue Clifden nonpareil moth Alamy Although all creatures are equal before the Lord, as it were, there is no doubt that to our own, less-than-perfect eyes, some are more equal – and certainly, more charismatic – than others. A very obvious case in point is the Clifden nonpareil, whose name boldly proclaims that it is without equal entirely. Maybe it is. The Clifden nonpareil is a moth; and it is the most magnificent moth to be found in the British Isles. Not only is it enormous, in moth terms, it has another characteristic that sets it quite apart from our other 867 larger moth species – and that is, blueness.

Moths favour browns and greys, and red and yellow and orange and cream, and occasionally green, but apart from the odd fleck, such as in the eyespots of the eyed hawkmoth, blue as a colour is, from the British moth fauna, completely missing. Yet not from Catocala fraxini. Its other English name is the blue underwing, and when it opens its silver-grey, delicately-patterned forewings it discloses black hindwings, each crossed by broad bands of a stunningly-beautiful smoky lilac. It’s a shock, and that’s the point. There are a dozen or so “underwing” moths in Britain and all employ the same use of colour as a defence. The forewings are cryptic, perfectly camouflaged to blend in with a stone wall or the bark of a tree, but if a predator such as a bird does notice the creature, it will suddenly snap its forewings open and display a flash of colour, bright enough to confuse the bird for that extra second to help it get away. Some of these species, such as the large yellow underwing, are common; but not the Clifden nonpareil. No sir.

It is not only exquisite, it is very rare, with only a few sightings each year, and it has been hugely prized by all those interested in Lepidoptera since it was first observed in the 18th century at the Thames-side estate of Cliveden in Berkshire. It’s been a sort of legendary treasure, a sort of holy grail for moth enthusiasts. For myself, as a Lepidoptera-lover I have longed to see it for years and years, without success, but this week, to cut out a long intervening story, I set eyes on it at last. At the weekend the charity Butterfly Conservation (BC) announced there had been an autumn influx of rare moths from the continent, including a spate of Clifden nonpareil sightings, three of them by BC’s Les Hill in Dorset, and on Tuesday evening I drove there to see if Les could produce one for me.

When I arrived at dusk he had his moth trap out in his garden, and I was prepared for long vigil, but Les had startling news; his colleague Mark Parsons, BC’s head of moth conservation, had actually found a Clifden nonpareil on the wall of his cottage, thirty miles away, half an hour earlier, and caught it. He had it still. We drove pell-mell to the other side of the county and eventually, in a plastic box in Mark’s kitchen, there it was. Asleep. (Do moths go to sleep? Well, torpid then). Motionless but miraculous. For when Mark gently touched the silver-grey forewings, they shot open, and there were the bands of that glorious lilac-blue. I couldn’t believe I was seeing it. It began to stir then, and shortly began to fly slowly around Mark’s kitchen. I was open-mouthed. It was as big as a bat – a bat of sensational colours. Eventually it settled on the kitchen wall, and before Mark released it, I persuaded it to climb onto my hand.

I can’t tell you what a supreme, wonderful experience it was, to be in such intimate contact with this amazing creature, even in the kitchen of a cottage in west Dorset. It’s hard to write about it without hyperbole, but if you’ve seen dolphins in the wild, and you remember your very first sighting of them, it was of that order; a sort of primal thrill at the riches of the natural world. All moths are equal before the Lord, of course. But this one – ah, nonpareil is the word. Twitter: @mjpmccarthy THE CLIFDEN NONPAREIL – BEWITCHED BY NABOKOV’S ELUSIVE BLUE UNDERWING | Where Monsters Dwell THE CLIFDEN NONPAREIL – BEWITCHED BY NABOKOV’S ELUSIVE BLUE UNDERWING Reposted from ShukerNature | Go to Original Post Suitably named – the truly unparalleled, peerless clifden nonpareil, gorgeously portrayed in Dr F. Nemos’s book Europas bekannteste Schmetterlinge.

Beschreibung der wichtigsten Arten und Anleitung zur Kenntnis und zum Sammeln der Schmetterlinge und Raupen (c.1895) In a previous ShukerNature blog article (click here ), I reminisced about my lifelong ambition (finally fulfilled after 48 years of ongoing frustration!) to see the bird above all others that had bewitched me from my earliest days – that cerise-plumed, butterfly-winged wonder known as the hoopoe, which is a rare but annual visitor to Great Britain. So too is another species – one that to me is the hoopoe of the moth world, because the thought of seeing this spectacular creature one day fills me with just as much enthusiasm and passion as I felt for so long and so earnestly in relation to the hoopoe. Yet whereas the latter is finally on my list of observed species, its equally charismatic lepidopteran counterpart remains resolutely unseen, still unencountered by me more than 54 years on from when I made my debut on the planet that I share with it. Clifden nonpareil depicted upon a postage stamp issued in 1974 by Hungary So what is this peerless, unparalleled species?

None other than the fittingly-named clifden nonpareil Catocala fraxini (‘nonpareil’ translates from the French as ‘without equal’). One of Britain‘s largest species of moth, it is also known, again appropriately albeit somewhat less romantically, as the blue underwing. Indeed, so noteworthy is this moth’s appearance that it even attracted the attention of eminent Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Well known for his passion for Lepidoptera, he immortalised the clifden nonpareil in his novel The Gift (1938, English translation 1963): “Your blue stripe, Catocalid, shows from under its gray lid”. Clifden nonpareil (© Harald Süpfle/Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0) This celebrated species belongs to the taxonomic family Noctuidae, the owlet moths, which is the largest family of moths, is of worldwide distribution, and contains over 35,000 species.

Within this family is the genus Catocala, containing over 250 species, native to Eurasia and North America, which are popularly termed underwings or underwing moths (Catocalais Greek for ‘beautiful hind ones’). This name refers to the usually bright stripes of colour present on the upper side of their hindwings. At rest, an underwing moth’s hindwings are concealed beneath its larger but very drab, grey-brown, cryptically-patterned forewings, allowing it to remain hidden from predators when resting in the open on the trunks of trees, etc. Should its presence be detected, however, in order to startle the predator momentarily and thus provide valuable escape time the moth will flash its brightly-coloured hindwings, abruptly revealing their colours. Due to the semi-circular shape of the stripes, moreover, it has been speculated that they may look like owl eyes to smaller birds, which would therefore frighten them away, saving the moth. These stripes occur in a wide range of colours, varying between species, and many Catocala species are named accordingly.

Thus there are red underwings, crimson underwings, rosy underwings, scarlet underwings, pink underwings, and so forth. Moreover, certain members of related genera that possess comparable hindwings are also referred to as underwings, such as the copper underwings Amphipyra spp., yellow underwings Noctua spp., and the brown underwing Minucia lunaris. In addition, there are two species of orange underwing Archlearis spp., but these belong to a separate taxonomic family, Geometridae. A red underwing Catocala nupta(top) and a clifden nonpareil (bottom), pictured in The Natural History of British Moths (1836), by J. Duncan Yet despite the difference in specific colours, these many species’ hindwing stripes all occur in the red portion of the colour spectrum – all except the stripes of one very singular, special species, that is.

Lone among all underwings, the stripes of the clifden nonpareil are blue, and not just some nondescript grey-blue shade either, but instead a bright, truly spectacular blue, which must be genuinely dazzling if suddenly flashed in the face of an inquisitive, too-close-for-comfort avian observer. Blue has always been far and away my all-time favourite colour – so much so in fact that I sometimes wonder whether my wardrobe would have been so plentifully packed with Levis and other jeans, not to mention trucker jackets and shirts, had the predominant dye for denim been anything other than blue! Hence it was inevitable that a blue underwing – and especially when it is the only blue underwing – would attract my enduring interest and attention once I’d learnt of such an exotic creature’s existence, and thus has it proved. Clifden nonpareil in grass (public domain) Moreover, boasting a 4-inch wingspan the clifden nonpareil is set apart from all other underwings not only by its blue hindwing stripes but also by its very large size – indeed, it is the world’s largest species of Catocala underwing.

It was scientifically named by none other than Linnaeus, in 1758, who dubbed it Phalaena fraxini (noting its sometime occurrence on ash trees, Fraxinus spp.) but it was subsequently rehoused in the genus Catocala after the latter was coined in 1802 by German entomologist Franz von Paula Schrank. It has a wide Old World distribution, being found as a resident in deciduous woodlands (especially near water) of northern and central Europe (and as a migrant in eastern and southern Europe), as well as in northern Asia, and in temperate eastern Asia as far as Japan. However, it is its famed rarity in Britain that has earned it its reputation as a near-legendary species – one that was prized above all others by moth collectors during the Victorian era.

The first published reference to the clifden nonpareil’s occurrence in Britain was by Benjamin Wilkes in his book The English Moths and Butterflies (1749), in which he recorded a specimen lately collected by a Mr Davenport on an ash tree near Clifden (now known as Cliveden) in Buckinghamshire – the location which, together with its unrivalled beauty, earned this species its common name. However, it had been known in Britain since at least 1740 – the year in which a specimen now in the Dale Collection within Oxford‘s Hope Museum was collected in Dorset. Since then, usually single specimens have been reported in a number of English counties spasmodically up until the 1940s and 1950s, during which period sightings increased as its range temporarily expanded due to favourable climatic conditions, even giving brief hope that this evanescent species had permanently established itself as a resident in Kent and the Norfolk Broads. Sadly, however, that hope was not fulfilled, because sightings fell again following the return of less favourable climate by the early 1960s, and it once more became merely an irregular immigrant.

Clifden nonpareil – extracted from Duncan‘s above-reproduced 1836 colour print Favouring the aspen as its larval foodplant (though also selecting other poplar species if aspen are not present, and sometimes found on ash trees too), the clifden nonpareil is most commonly sighted in September, particularly in southern and southeastern England. In recent years, however, there have been well-publicised records from the Westcountry counties too (one specimen turned up at Cornwall‘s Lost Gardens of Heligan in autumn 2010), and there is even a faint possibility that small colonies are establishing themselves in Suffolk. The recolonisation of southern England by this exquisite species would be a wonderful occurrence, so we can but hope that prevailing climatic conditions continue to encourage this most welcome trend. And who knows – if this does occur, one day the clifden nonpareil might expand its range even further, taking in my home county of the West Midlands.

In 1872, there was a record from the neighbouring county of Shropshire, plus there are several 19th-Century records from northern England, and even Scotland and Ireland too, so it was clearly not a confirmed southerner back then. What a marvellous, magical experience it would be if, finally, some day in the not-too-distant future I could encounter a large grey moth that suddenly flashed its hindwings at me to reveal a dazzling stripe of bright blue. For me, such an event would definitely be peerless, truly unparalleled – just like the clifden nonpareil itself. 19th-Century colour plate featuring a clifden nonpareil Spread the Fear: Clifden Nonpareil | Moths etc. Clifden Nonpareil Andrew 4 Comments In The Independent two years ago it was written: Although all creatures are equal before the Lord, as it were, there is no doubt that to our own, less-than-perfect eyes, some are more equal – and certainly, more charismatic – than others. A very obvious case in point is the Clifden nonpareil, whose name boldly proclaims that it is without equal entirely. ………… ….

the Clifden nonpareil. …… It is not only exquisite, it is very rare, with only a few sightings each year, and it has been hugely prized by all those interested in Lepidoptera since it was first observed in the 18th century at the Thames-side estate of Cliveden in Berkshire. It’s been a sort of legendary treasure, a sort of holy grail for moth enthusiasts. Just how rare this moth is I had not appreciated until I sent a photo to a mothing friend yesterday. He has been a lepidopterist since he was in his nappies (we are of an age) and it runs in the family. He admitted he had never seen one ‘in the flesh’. And neither had I until yesterday. I was late down to my MV trap – after 7am. The day before had been traumatic as so many of them have been recently. House renovation, you know? I started working my way through the egg trays and was resigned to the usual parade of Lunar Underwings and Large Yellow Underwings. Until, there, half way down was a large, pale grey moth. Almost, not quite undamaged. I blinked. I paused.

I looked again and did a little jig. I then whipped out my iPhone and took a few photos. Just in case. Later, I took some better ones. The wingspan is about 90mm. I measured it. Catocala fraxini is a moth whose status is not entirely clear. It seems to have tried to colonise Britain earlier, failed and is now having another go. Nonetheless it is a rarity that every moth-er hopes to find in their trap. Like most birds that are twitched in Britain this is a moth that is commonplace elsewhere. It simply doesn’t normally visit us very often. It is also rare for its colour – blue. When did you last seen a moth or butterfly with such a striking colour. I picked up a book from the 19th century (British Moths, James Duncan) and read its description of the species. It refers to the finding of the species in Suffolk, Kent and Surrey. It states that it had never been found further North than York. Its larvae live on Ash, Poplar, Oak, Elm and Birch. Its range today is mainly along the South coast from Kent to Dorset and there is speculation there may be a population North of Basingstoke.

I am minded to find out more. In the meantime it is reduced to number 385 on my garden list but never was a moth more appreciated. I may never see one again. Share this: Clifden Nonpareil | Moths etc. Clifden Nonpareil Andrew 4 Comments In The Independent two years ago it was written: Although all creatures are equal before the Lord, as it were, there is no doubt that to our own, less-than-perfect eyes, some are more equal – and certainly, more charismatic – than others. A very obvious case in point is the Clifden nonpareil, whose name boldly proclaims that it is without equal entirely. ………… …. the Clifden nonpareil. …… It is not only exquisite, it is very rare, with only a few sightings each year, and it has been hugely prized by all those interested in Lepidoptera since it was first observed in the 18th century at the Thames-side estate of Cliveden in Berkshire. It’s been a sort of legendary treasure, a sort of holy grail for moth enthusiasts. Just how rare this moth is I had not appreciated until I sent a photo to a mothing friend yesterday.

He has been a lepidopterist since he was in his nappies (we are of an age) and it runs in the family. He admitted he had never seen one ‘in the flesh’. And neither had I until yesterday. I was late down to my MV trap – after 7am. The day before had been traumatic as so many of them have been recently. House renovation, you know? I started working my way through the egg trays and was resigned to the usual parade of Lunar Underwings and Large Yellow Underwings. Until, there, half way down was a large, pale grey moth. Almost, not quite undamaged. I blinked. I paused. I looked again and did a little jig. I then whipped out my iPhone and took a few photos. Just in case. Later, I took some better ones. The wingspan is about 90mm. I measured it. Catocala fraxini is a moth whose status is not entirely clear. It seems to have tried to colonise Britain earlier, failed and is now having another go. Nonetheless it is a rarity that every moth-er hopes to find in their trap.

Like most birds that are twitched in Britain this is a moth that is commonplace elsewhere. It simply doesn’t normally visit us very often. It is also rare for its colour – blue. When did you last seen a moth or butterfly with such a striking colour. I picked up a book from the 19th century (British Moths, James Duncan) and read its description of the species. It refers to the finding of the species in Suffolk, Kent and Surrey. It states that it had never been found further North than York. Its larvae live on Ash, Poplar, Oak, Elm and Birch. Its range today is mainly along the South coast from Kent to Dorset and there is speculation there may be a population North of Basingstoke. I am minded to find out more. In the meantime it is reduced to number 385 on my garden list but never was a moth more appreciated. I may never see one again.

The holy grail of British moths is a real bolt from the blue - Footnotes Footnotes » The holy grail of British moths is a real bolt from the blue The holy grail of British moths is a real bolt from the blue BY MICHAEL MCCARTHY IN THE INDEPENDENT WEDNESDAY 9 OCTOBER 2013 Original article here. Although all creatures are equal before the Lord, as it were, there is no doubt that to our own, less-than-perfect eyes, some are more equal – and certainly, more charismatic – than others. A very obvious case in point is the Clifden nonpareil, whose name boldly proclaims that it is without equal entirely. Maybe it is. The Clifden nonpareil is a moth; and it is the most magnificent moth to be found in the British Isles. Not only is it enormous, in moth terms, it has another characteristic that sets it quite apart from our other 867 larger moth species – and that is, blueness.

Moths favour browns and greys, and red and yellow and orange and cream, and occasionally green, but apart from the odd fleck, such as in the eyespots of the eyed hawkmoth, blue as a colour is, from the British moth fauna, completely missing. Yet not from Catocala fraxini. Its other English name is the blue underwing, and when it opens its silver-grey, delicately-patterned forewings it discloses black hindwings, each crossed by broad bands of a stunningly-beautiful smoky lilac. Catocala fraxini, the Clifden Nonpareil It’s a shock, and that’s the point. There are a dozen or so “underwing” moths in Britain and all employ the same use of colour as a defence. The forewings are cryptic, perfectly camouflaged to blend in with a stone wall or the bark of a tree, but if a predator such as a bird does notice the creature, it will suddenly snap its forewings open and display a flash of colour, bright enough to confuse the bird for that extra second to help it get away.

Some of these species, such as the large yellow underwing, are common; but not the Clifden nonpareil. No sir. It is not only exquisite, it is very rare, with only a few sightings each year, and it has been hugely prized by all those interested in Lepidoptera since it was first observed in the 18th century at the Thames-side estate of Cliveden in Berkshire. It’s been a sort of legendary treasure, a sort of holy grail for moth enthusiasts. For myself, as a Lepidoptera-lover I have longed to see it for years and years, without success, but this week, to cut out a long intervening story, I set eyes on it at last. At the weekend the charity Butterfly Conservation (BC) announced there had been an autumn influx of rare moths from the continent, including a spate of Clifden nonpareil sightings, three of them by BC’s Les Hill in Dorset, and on Tuesday evening I drove there to see if Les could produce one for me.

When I arrived at dusk he had his moth trap out in his garden, and I was prepared for long vigil, but Les had startling news; his colleague Mark Parsons, BC’s head of moth conservation, had actually found a Clifden nonpareil on the wall of his cottage, thirty miles away, half an hour earlier, and caught it. He had it still. We drove pell-mell to the other side of the county and eventually, in a plastic box in Mark’s kitchen, there it was. Asleep. (Do moths go to sleep? Well, torpid then). Motionless but miraculous. For when Mark gently touched the silver-grey forewings, they shot open, and there were the bands of that glorious lilac-blue. I couldn’t believe I was seeing it. It began to stir then, and shortly began to fly slowly around Mark’s kitchen. I was open-mouthed. It was as big as a bat – a bat of sensational colours. Eventually it settled on the kitchen wall, and before Mark released it, I persuaded it to climb onto my hand.

I can’t tell you what a supreme, wonderful experience it was, to be in such intimate contact with this amazing creature, even in the kitchen of a cottage in west Dorset. It’s hard to write about it without hyperbole, but if you’ve seen dolphins in the wild, and you remember your very first sighting of them, it was of that order; a sort of primal thrill at the riches of the natural world. All moths are equal before the Lord, of course. But this one – ah, nonpareil is the word. Twitter: @mjpmccarthy Clifden Nonpareil (Blue Underwing) Catocala fraxini 15 Eggs Clifden Nonpareil (Blue Underwing) Catocala fraxini 15 Eggs Availability: NOW Clifden Nonpareil (Blue Underwing) Catocala fraxini The largest underwing, spectacular blue. Store eggs refrigerated until May. This species is now almost extinct in Britain . We are offering European stock of this fine moth, the largest of all Underwings and remarkable for its BLUE hindwings.

The young larvae are immensely active and care must be taken when transferring them to fooplant on hatching, because they can tangle themselves up if you try to move more than one at a time! Feed on Aspen and other Poplars. The larvae are the larges of this genus and very satisfying to rear. Moths emerge in late summer, laying eggs that overwinter. ShukerNature: THE CLIFDEN NONPAREIL – BEWITCHED BY NABOKOV'S ELUSIVE BLUE UNDERWING PLEASE COME IN, I'VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU... WELCOME TO SHUKERNATURE - ENJOY YOUR VISIT - BEWARE OF THE RAPTOR! Saturday, 19 July 2014 THE CLIFDEN NONPAREIL – BEWITCHED BY NABOKOV'S ELUSIVE BLUE UNDERWING Suitably named – the truly unparalleled, peerless clifden nonpareil, gorgeously portrayed in Dr F. Nemos's book Europas bekannteste Schmetterlinge.

Beschreibung der wichtigsten Arten und Anleitung zur Kenntnis und zum Sammeln der Schmetterlinge und Raupen (c.1895) In a previous ShukerNature blog article (click here ), I reminisced about my lifelong ambition (finally fulfilled after 48 years of ongoing frustration!) to see the bird above all others that had bewitched me from my earliest days – that cerise-plumed, butterfly-winged wonder known as the hoopoe, which is a rare but annual visitor to Great Britain. So too is another species – one that to me is the hoopoe of the moth world, because the thought of seeing this spectacular creature one day fills me with just as much enthusiasm and passion as I felt for so long and so earnestly in relation to the hoopoe. Yet whereas the latter is finally on my list of observed species, its equally charismatic lepidopteran counterpart remains resolutely unseen, still unencountered by me more than 54 years on from when I made my debut on the planet that I share with it. Clifden nonpareil depicted upon a postage stamp issued in 1974 by Hungary So what is this peerless, unparalleled species?

None other than the fittingly-named clifden nonpareil Catocala fraxini ('nonpareil' translates from the French as 'without equal'). One of Britain's largest species of moth, it is also known, again appropriately albeit somewhat less romantically, as the blue underwing. Indeed, so noteworthy is this moth's appearance that it even attracted the attention of eminent Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Well known for his passion for Lepidoptera, he immortalised the clifden nonpareil in his novel The Gift (1938, English translation 1963): "Your blue stripe, Catocalid, shows from under its gray lid". Clifden nonpareil (© Harald Süpfle/Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0) This celebrated species belongs to the taxonomic family Noctuidae, the owlet moths, which is the largest family of moths, is of worldwide distribution, and contains over 35,000 species.

Within this family is the genus Catocala, containing over 250 species, native to Eurasia and North America, which are popularly termed underwings or underwing moths (Catocala is Greek for 'beautiful hind ones'). This name refers to the usually bright stripes of colour present on the upper side of their hindwings. At rest, an underwing moth's hindwings are concealed beneath its larger but very drab, grey-brown, cryptically-patterned forewings, allowing it to remain hidden from predators when resting in the open on the trunks of trees, etc. Should its presence be detected, however, in order to startle the predator momentarily and thus provide valuable escape time the moth will flash its brightly-coloured hindwings, abruptly revealing their colours. Due to the semi-circular shape of the stripes, moreover, it has been speculated that they may look like owl eyes to smaller birds, which would therefore frighten them away, saving the moth. These stripes occur in a wide range of colours, varying between species, and many Catocala species are named accordingly.

Thus there are red underwings, crimson underwings, rosy underwings, scarlet underwings, pink underwings, and so forth. Moreover, certain members of related genera that possess comparable hindwings are also referred to as underwings, such as the copper underwings Amphipyra spp., yellow underwings Noctua spp., and the brown underwing Minucia lunaris. In addition, there are two species of orange underwing Archlearis spp., but these belong to a separate taxonomic family, Geometridae. A red underwing Catocala nupta (top) and a clifden nonpareil (bottom), pictured in The Natural History of British Moths (1836), by J. Duncan Yet despite the difference in specific colours, these many species' hindwing stripes all occur in the red portion of the colour spectrum – all except the stripes of one very singular, special species, that is.

Lone among all underwings, the stripes of the clifden nonpareil are blue, and not just some nondescript grey-blue shade either, but instead a bright, truly spectacular blue, which must be genuinely dazzling if suddenly flashed in the face of an inquisitive, too-close-for-comfort avian observer. Blue has always been far and away my all-time favourite colour – so much so in fact that I sometimes wonder whether my wardrobe would have been so plentifully packed with Levis and other jeans, not to mention trucker jackets and shirts, had the predominant dye for denim been anything other than blue! Hence it was inevitable that a blue underwing – and especially when it is the only blue underwing – would attract my enduring interest and attention once I'd learnt of such an exotic creature's existence, and thus has it proved. Clifden nonpareil in grass (public domain) Moreover, boasting a 4-inch wingspan the clifden nonpareil is set apart from all other underwings not only by its blue hindwing stripes but also by its very large size – indeed, it is the world's largest species of Catocala underwing.

It was scientifically named by none other than Linnaeus, in 1758, who dubbed it Phalaena fraxini (noting its sometime occurrence on ash trees, Fraxinus spp.) but it was subsequently rehoused in the genus Catocala after the latter was coined in 1802 by German entomologist Franz von Paula Schrank. It has a wide Old World distribution, being found as a resident in deciduous woodlands (especially near water) of northern and central Europe (and as a migrant in eastern and southern Europe), as well as in northern Asia, and in temperate eastern Asia as far as Japan. However, it is its famed rarity in Britain that has earned it its reputation as a near-legendary species - one that was prized above all others by moth collectors during the Victorian era.

The first published reference to the clifden nonpareil's occurrence in Britain was by Benjamin Wilkes in his book The English Moths and Butterflies (1749), in which he recorded a specimen lately collected by a Mr Davenport on an ash tree near Clifden (now known as Cliveden) in Buckinghamshire – the location which, together with its unrivalled beauty, earned this species its common name. However, it had been known in Britain since at least 1740 – the year in which a specimen now in the Dale Collection within Oxford's Hope Museum was collected in Dorset. Since then, usually single specimens have been reported in a number of English counties spasmodically up until the 1940s and 1950s, during which period sightings increased as its range temporarily expanded due to favourable climatic conditions, even giving brief hope that this evanescent species had permanently established itself as a resident in Kent and the Norfolk Broads. Sadly, however, that hope was not fulfilled, because sightings fell again following the return of less favourable climate by the early 1960s, and it once more became merely an irregular immigrant.

Clifden nonpareil – extracted from Duncan's above-reproduced 1836 colour print Favouring the aspen as its larval foodplant (though also selecting other poplar species if aspen are not present, and sometimes found on ash trees too), the clifden nonpareil is most commonly sighted in September, particularly in southern and southeastern England. In recent years, however, there have been well-publicised records from the Westcountry counties too (one specimen turned up at Cornwall's Lost Gardens of Heligan in autumn 2010), and there is even a faint possibility that small colonies are establishing themselves in Suffolk. The recolonisation of southern England by this exquisite species would be a wonderful occurrence, so we can but hope that prevailing climatic conditions continue to encourage this most welcome trend. And who knows – if this does occur, one day the clifden nonpareil might expand its range even further, taking in my home county of the West Midlands.

In 1872, there was a record from the neighbouring county of Shropshire, plus there are several 19th-Century records from northern England, and even Scotland and Ireland too, so it was clearly not a confirmed southerner back then. What a marvellous, magical experience it would be if, finally, some day in the not-too-distant future I could encounter a large grey moth that suddenly flashed its hindwings at me to reveal a dazzling stripe of bright blue. For me, such an event would definitely be peerless, truly unparalleled – just like the clifden nonpareil itself. 19th-Century colour plate featuring a clifden nonpareil Posted by Exotic butterflies migrate to Dorset (From Dorset Echo) Exotic butterflies migrate to Dorset Clifden Nonpareil. Picture Mark Parsons/Butterfly Conservation 5 comments THE Dorset countryside is becoming the epicentre of an invasion of butterflies and moths from Europe because of climate changes. Increasing numbers of rare migrants are being caught and recorded as the county stands on the frontline of the continental invasion.

The East-Lulworth based Butterfly Conservation charity, hailed the arrivals - including the rare moths Clifden Nonpareil, Beautiful Marbled and Rosy Underwing. It says some creatures may not survive the winter but others - including the Clifden Nonpareil and Rosy Underwing may have established permanent colonies. Lulworth-based moth recorder Les Hill has spotted three Clifden Nonpareil moths in the past two weeks in the same part of south Dorset. He said: “Clifden Nonpareil is one of the most charismatic of British moth fauna and is on every moth recorders' wish list.” “As the name nonpareil states, it is peerless and has no equal. “To record one in a lifetime is the fulfilment of an ambition; to record them every year in my garden is just remarkable.” Mr Hill has recorded the moth over the past decade after sightings died out about 50 years ago as aspen trees went into decline although they are now making homes in poplar. He said that they were now becoming concentrated in Dorset - including Lulworth, Briantspuddle , Puddletown , Tolpuddle and Upwey in Weymouth.

Mr Hill said that there was no evidence yet, such as larvae, to indicate a breeding colony but that they thought the moths had become established. Mr Hill has also caught a Rosy Underwing in Lulworth - one of only 13 nationwide. He has also just caught a Beautiful Marbled moth, with the only other example caught this year in Charmouth. He added: “Dorset is probably the best place, we believe, for migrant moths although Kent is up there as well.” The Portland Bird Observatory and Durlston Country Park have helped the county become a hotspot as they have been recording the creature although sightings from all people are welcomed by Butterfly Conservation. Mr Hill said: “It is very much anecdotal but we think climate change is very much to do with them moving north.” The invasion of continental butterflies, mostly from France, is not a risk to British species, according to the charity. It releases the findings as the traditional autumn moth migration gets underway.

Richard Fox, of the Butterfly Conservation charity, said: “These sightings are very exciting news, not only for the people lucky enough to see these thrilling butterflies and moths in the wild but also for the future.” PANEL The Clifden Nonpareil, first recorded in Clifden, Buckinghamshire, boasts a striking blue flash on its wings. It is the largest of the underwing moths - a group famous for the vivid dashes of colour that are used to ward off predators - and is recognised by a striking blue flash. The large Rosy Underwing has only been seen on 10 occasions in Britain prior to this summer.

Question: A Clifden Nonpareil is what type of creature?
Answer: Moth