Species Account

Select species and region:

Distribution

Summary Data

Season (Adult / Immature):

National Status: Common

Local Status: Uncommon and fairly widespread resident.

Local Record: Grade 1 See here for explanation

Flight time: One generation, Jul-Aug

Forewing: 11-13mm.

Foodplant: Yarrow, Sneezewort.

Regional breakdown:

	VC61	VC62	VC63	VC64	VC65
Year first recorded	1883	1904	1883	1950	1883
Year last recorded	2014	2014	2014	2014	2014
Number of records	519	224	176	279	83
Number of individuals	476	238	146	350	118
Unique positions	72	65	84	86	26
Unique locations	77	63	84	92	26
Adult records	496	207	137	261	80
Immature records	2	0	1	1	0

For the county, we have a total of 1281 records from 342 sites. First recorded in 1883.

Photos

Species Account

Sutton & Beaumont, 1989: Widely distributed and locally common where yarrow is plentiful in all five vice-counties. This species is recorded more frequently than many other pugs, perhaps because it is relatively easy to identify.

2012 (CHF): There has been a decline in numbers in recent years though it can still be locally quite common. Still quite widely distributed across the county. The form with the orange-brown forewing patch (f. subfulvata) is much commoner than the plainer form (f. cognata).

2020 (CHF): Tawny Speckled Pug is one of the easiest Pugs to identify and is always a pleasure to find in the moth trap. It is however in trouble. It has been in decline for many years. For the very first time this year there were no records at all in VC64. There was only one site in VC63. The situation is mirrored to a certain extent nationally though I get the impression that it is not doing quite as badly in the south and east of the country. The chart shows what has happened in Yorkshire over the last 40 years, the y axis is the number of records per 10,000 records, so this year we had 32 records out of 212,000 ie 0.15 per 10,000. The VC63 site was responsible for 14 of these which actually makes it look artificially good.

It occurs in a variety of habitats and the main food plant is said to be yarrow, but I think it is commonest in calcareous herb-rich weedy areas. I think the most likely cause of the demise is our obsessive drive to "tidy up" our countryside, cut our road verges too early, build "affordable housing" on brownfield sites and plough up to the edges of our fields.

Its closest relative, Bordered Pug, another attractive and easily-recognised species, is in the same predicament. Larvae feed on Mugwort and Wormwood and it is even more a species of disturbed ground. Numbers are slowly dropping and insidious "tidying up" is again likely to be the reason.

See background to species accounts. Index of Vernacular names - Search - Random Species

Yorkshire Moths
A guide to the moths of VC61-65