Tuesday 29 November 2016

Ghana Moths 2016

I've managed to identify all the moths I photographed in Ghana with the help of Afromoths.net & Africanmoths.com which has a database of 4,000 moths between them. Only one was difficult to find [see below].

 Acrojana spendida [Eupterotidae] @ Ankasa
 Aethaloessa floridalis [Crambidae] @ Ankasa
 Balacra caeruleifascia [Arcttiidae] @ Ankasa
 Banisia myrususalis [Thyrididae] @ Ankasa
 Chrysodeixis chalcites [Noctuidae] @ Ankasa
 Cnaphalocrocis poeyalis [Crambidae] @ Ankasa
 Cyana delicata [Arctiidae] @ Ankasa
 This is the difficult one - genus is "Hypopyra" and possibly species "capensis" which is quite variable, if not it is yet to be documented as a species of Hypopyra. @ Ankasa
 Neopolyptychus spurrelli [Sphingidae] @ Mole
 Parasa viridissima [Limacodidae] @ Ankasa
Pseudothyretes carnea [Arctiidae] @ Kakum

Friday 25 November 2016

Ghana 2016

Just got back from Ghana which turned out to be a very successful trip with 370 species of birds seen of which 177 were new for me. Plus 100 odd butterfly species , all the expected Mammals, dragonflies and other insects all photographed. Rain-forest photography was very difficult and hard to get crisp photos, so concentrated on the masses of butterflies. I'll be spending the next few weeks editing photos, writing a trip report and ID'ing everything so here's a few photos to start with.








Friday 4 November 2016

Hoverfly round up for 2016

2016 has been a very successful year on the hoverfly front with the valley list increasing from 79 to 109 species with most photographed. Our target [Paul Tabor and I] was to hit the 100 barrier, but we easily surpassed that. I have also sent off 60 specimens to Roger Morris of the HRS, who will determine these over the winter and I'll report on these when the results are received. Below are the two main graphs of the numbers and species recorded per month compared to 2015. These are just my records for the moment. Our target for next year has to be 125 and then possibly the mythical number of 150 during the 5th year of recording in 2019.