Yorkshire Status: Local resident.

In 1907 Porritt wrote "a very local species, only occurring on coast sandhills where Elymus arenarius, its food plant, grows." Its food plant (Lyme-grass) grows all around the coast of the UK, but the moth just occurs in scattered locations along the east coast from Sussex to northern Scotland, and also (since 2009) on the Lancashire coast. It has three main locations in Yorkshire - at Spurn where most of our records come from, at Teesside where there seem to be some good colonies, and in the Flamborough area where it is recorded much less frequently. Numbers have dropped off considerably since the early 2000s, with an all-time low of just five records in 2021, though it has done a little better since then. The biggest counts have all come from near Teesside, the most being 40 at Marske Beach on 17/6/2006, though in some years we get no records from this area.

Sutton & Beaumont, 1989: This is a local coastal species in Britain, and until mid 1988 its only known Yorkshire localities were along the Holderness coast in VC61. It is likely to be present in this area wherever the foodplant grows (PQW pers. comm.) and another site has now been discovered in the north of the County by M. R. Britton.

Recorded in 11 (6%) of 200 10k Squares. First Recorded in 1875. Last Recorded in 2023. Additional Stats

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