Name Shame Again

I've been away on a long weekend up on the north west coast of Cumbria. Doing nothing remotely to do with natural history, just getting some fresh air, peace and rest. It was a great and much needed break with some superb scenery, and we managed to avoid the wet weather by heading wherever the rain maps said it was dry. I'll perhaps post some scenic shots another time.

I'm aware that I've had a number of new moths for the garden that I never rounded up, but I think I have a few more pending gen det so will do a fuller round up on those later in the autumn.

The trap was on last night for the first time in a week and it was again pretty good for Hemiptera. Here's a selection, starting with a few new species for me ....

Idiocerus herrichi. This one looked quite funky by the trap so I potted it up for a proper look. Note the banding on costal edge of forewing, scutellum pattern and funky moustache on the genae.

Lamprotettix nitidulus - another distinctive scutellum pattern, looks like a sad owl drawn by a child

Orthotylus flavosparsus. Usually has six legs.

The following are also new, though I know they'll need chopping to convince record verifiers ....

Macrosteles laevis

Ribautiana debilis

These are also from last night ....

Balclutha punctata

Another Ledra aurita

Phytocoris varipes

Stenagostus rhombeus (not Hemipteran ....)

And this is one from the previous trap outing on 4th August ....

Blepharidopterus angulatus

Some may recall this blog post from 2012, where I reasoned that there was no justification for advocating the 'new' vernacular names for micros if the book by Sterling/Parsons/Lewington did not use them. Well the best part of a decade has passed since then. The book was duly published and made no reference to the vernaculars. A new checklist was published the following year, again no vernaculars. MapMate still avoids them, and so does the well-used UK Moths website. A recording guideline for micros was published by Butterfly Conservation in 2016, and - surprise surprise, makes no use of the ill-fated vernaculars.

All good then? Well it should be, but for some unfathomable reason there are people trying to get them in use, with several county moth websites listing them. Worse still, this bloke is now inviting people to make their own up ....

'Common names' are just that - names that are in widespread, regular common use. Many insects don't have them at all. Some have them though the usage is not widespread and regular enough for them to stick, and some have names that are widely accepted.

The standard argument that everything should have a common name is that it somehow makes insect recording more accessible and conservation more achievable. I reckon this is complete bollocks, and I fully expect this latest venture to be a total failure with experienced moth recorders. The new recorders of today should be more than capable of learning a name, regardless of whether it is some English words or not, like the rest of us have done in previous years/decades. I strongly suspect that those who are unable to rationale a string of Latin characters are the same people who post a picture of a Spectacle asking for confirmation that it is a Pebble Prominent.

Still, if new common names are the way to go then Stubbs has missed a trick here with his new book, which clearly should have been published as British Leggy Twats. I'm not a fan of this group, and yet feel compelled to get a copy ....