SOME NOTABLE ESSEX BUTTERFLIES AND LARGER MOTHS
by G. A. Pyman
To select species for discussion in this chapter has not been an easy task. In the case of the
butterflies Essex has lost a number of fine insects over the past century and very few of those that
remain have any claim to notability. Consequently the selection of species for special mention posed
quite a problem. How different the picture would have been had this chapter been written a century
ago when, for example, purple emperors (Apatura iris) could have been seen in their scores in the
north Essex woods (Douglas, 1842; Harwood, 1903)!
The problem faced over the selection of notable Essex moths was quite different, as it was one of
which to leave out A few of the 650-odd species were automatic choices but a substantial proportion
of the remainder have some claim to consideration and the final choice required a great deal of thought
and in some cases has, perforce, been arbitrary.
Clearly a species is notable if it is confined or almost confined to Essex and all such cases, a mere
handful, are mentioned. The rest have been selected from a number of different categories. These
include nationally rare species which are to be found in Essex; nationally local species which are well
established in the County; notable immigrants; species first discovered in Essex and in three cases
named after Essex lepidopterists, two of them happily still with us; recent colonists or recolonists; and
pest species.
The Essex skipper butterfly (Thymelicus lineola) owes its English name to its discovery as a
British insect at St Osyth in 1889 by F. W. Hawes (1890). After this publication a number of Essex
skippers which had been labelled as small skippers (T. sylvestris) were discovered in collections.
Subsequent field work soon revealed that the 'new' species, which had been separated on the
Continent many years earlier, was well established and locally abundant in a number of eastern and
southern seaboard counties. It is marginally smaller than the small skipper whilst the streak on the
male's forewing is shorter and less oblique, but the best distinguishing feature, which is present in both
sexes, is the black 'blob' on the underside of the tip of the antenna.
That fragile pierid, the wood white (Leptidia sinapis) was plentiful in the Epping area until the
middle of the last century and Harwood( 1903) gave six other localities for it. Nothing more was heard
of it in Essex until 1976 when one was seen in a wood on the western side of the County. The same
observer had seen another on the Hertfordshire side of the boundary, only a short distance away, the
previous summer. There have been indications that this white may be regaining parts of its lost
territories in other counties and, although it has not been seen in Essex since 1976, naturalists should
be on the look-out for it
A late candidate for inclusion in this chapter is the clouded yellow (Colias croceus). For many
years numbers of this orange-yellow butterfly reaching Essex annually had been very small, but 1983
saw its largest influx since the great migrant year of 1947 and there were few parts of the County to
which it did not penetrate. The writer, who had seen only one clouded yellow in Essex in the previous
20 years, never thought the day would come, as it did in late October 1983, when he would add this
butterfly to his garden list!
The rediscovery of the brown hairstreak (Thecla betulae) in Essex is a most welcome event. The
butterfly had gone unrecorded this century until 1983 when four scattered individuals were seen in its
former stronghold of Epping Forest. We have no reason to suppose that the insects were anything
other than wild stock which had survived in the Forest unseen through the years. A report, received
subsequently, of a female in a garden near Braintree in the mid-1970s was equally welcome.
Until the 1950s it was possible to visit many Essex woods and thrill to the sight of three, in places
four, species of fritillary with their rich tawny hue, or to the superb white admiral (Ladoga camilla)
alternately flicking or skimming its way between the trees. Sadly, all four fritillary species have since
virtually died out but the white admiral has persisted in one or two localities, although it appears to be
still reasonably well represented only in the wooded belt on the Stour estuary.
Another butterfly which reappeared in Essex in 1983 after a long absence is the purple emperor
mentioned earlier in this chapter. Two individuals were involved - one in the west and the other in the
east - and we feel it is possible that both were genuine wild vagrants as not only were they seen during a
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