Rose Shoot Moth Notocelia rosaecolana

I have been looking unsuccessfully for this species for a long time and wondering if either I am overlooking it or other people are over-recording it. I have caught around 350 Hawthorn Shoot Moths Notocelia trimaculana in Norfolk, mostly in my garden, but never one that I consider to have been rosaecolana. Especially in recent years I have dissected the best candidates for rosaecolana (and many that were at best very weak candidates), about 50 in total, but in every case the genitalia has supported my ID as trimaculana.

I've struggled to be convinced about some of the moths that others have identified as rosaecolana, though some of these were apparently confirmed by gen det. Differences in genitalia aren't huge and doubt has been cast on the reliability of some supposed differences, so even after gen detting so many I've still had a lingering questionmark over whether or not I might be overlooking rosaecolana or misidentifying them as trimaculana.

In this context it was particularly pleasing that this moth (away from home in Greater London) leapt out at me as being different. It wasn't anything to do with the marks along the costa (although on closer inspection these did seem to point to rosaecolana too), but soemthing about the clean-ness of the whiter areas in the wing, the joined-up C-shape of the dark pretornal blotch and possibly the form of parallel lines within this blotch. I'm not saying these are diagnostic, but the overall appearance jumped out as being different to the trimaculana I am used to seeing at home. The genitalia too was also more immediately obviously different than I had anticipated - the difference in the long narrow socii compared to the short thicker socii of trimaculana (including one I dissected at the same time) were really obvious and there was no umming and ahing about whether the cucullus lobes were pointed or rounded.

This experience has reassured me that I am probably not overlooking rosaecolana at home - it seems they are genuinely rare in this part of Norfolk, if not entirely absent (even if some of the zillions of records from the Norwich area might be correct).

male Rose Shoot Moth Notocelia rosaecolana showing gentalia, Riddlesdown, Purley (Greater London/Watsonian VC17 Surrey, UK), 30th May 2025