Yorkshire Status: Fairly common resident.

Least Yellow Underwing is a reasonably common moth, occurring in small numbers across much of the county. This has not always been the case. Porritt was able to list several sites in 1883 but found it "much scarcer" than Broad-bordered and Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing. In Rutherford's 1970 list he said "the only locality for which there are any records in the last fifty years is Kilnsea and Spurn where it is often common." Sutton and Beaumont's comments suggest warming weather initiated an increase in range in the 1970s, and it has certainly continue to expand since then, with many records in central Scotland where it used to be very rare. Numbers in Yorkshire may have dropped off a little in recent years, and counts into double figures are now unusual. 81 at Spurn on 25/7/1989 remains the record count. Is is now much less common here.

Sutton & Beaumont, 1989: Previously restricted to Spurn (VC61) for many years (YNU, 1970), the warm weather of the mid 1970s seemed to initiate a range increase. Not recorded from VC65 (though there is a record which might be in VC65 shown in 10km square SD69 on map 112 in MBGBI 9).

Recorded in 155 (78%) of 200 10k Squares. First Recorded in 1883. Last Recorded in 2023. Additional Stats

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