A brand new species of clearwing moth has been discovered in Port Talbot, Wales. These moths were unintentionally transported to the UK from Guyana inside a camera bag after a photography trip. They were unusual for a typical moth found in British homes, leading to their identification as a new species following an extensive investigative process spanning continents.
A newly identified species of moth has been described far beyond its native region after an extensive investigative journey that involved scientists from the Natural History Museum across different disciplines, an enthusiastic young ecologist specializing in community science, a globetrotting photographer, and two previously unclassified moths that traveled over 4,500 miles from Guyana.
The species, known as Carmenta brachyclados, refers to a distinctive short vein in its hindwing. Despite never being recorded in its homeland of Guyana, a remarkable series of events led to its identification after being seen fluttering around a residence in Port Talbot, Wales.
Earlier this year, in February, the newfound species was observed near the home of ecologist Daisy Cadet and her mother, Ashleigh, who is a professional photographer. Captivated by the moth’s striking appearance, which was notably strange for a winter house moth in the UK, Daisy shared a picture on social media, triggering an investigative chain reaction.
After being informed by users on social media that she may have discovered something special, Daisy contacted experts in lepidoptera at the Natural History Museum, Mark Sterling and David Lees. They began searching for a visual match for the moths from Wales among the vast collection of over 13.5 million Lepidoptera housed at the museum, the largest and most diverse of its kind in the world.
To further their investigation, Sterling and Lees, along with Jordan Beasley from the museum, performed DNA sequencing on the moth. Their analysis revealed that the closest relatives of this specimen were a group of seed-feeding clearwing moths, known as Carmenta, found in Central and South America. This discovery encouraged Daisy to check her mother’s camera bag, which had traveled with her to Guyana.
Inside the bag, they found two delicate, intact pupal casings nestled in the mud from Ashleigh’s boots, along with a small piece of woody plant material that appeared to have been burrowed into by the moth’s caterpillars.
Mark Sterling, a Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum, remarked: “Clearwing moths are notoriously elusive, even for professional entomologists. They are even more challenging to rear from larvae or pupae, as they usually dry out or deteriorate within a few days of collection.”
“The fact that two clearwing moths from the Neotropics managed to emerge in South Wales, more than three months after arriving, during the chilly Welsh winter, and remained in a good condition is truly remarkable.”
“The odds of such an occurrence are hard to understand. However, while in Guyana, Ashleigh was advised to leave a tobacco offering to the spirits of the jungle for a glimpse of something beautiful, and that’s exactly what she did. We conclude in our paper that it must have been exceptional tobacco.”
Dr. David Lees, Senior Curator for Microlepidoptera at the Natural History Museum, added: “Adding to the unlikelihood of this story is the fact that thanks to Daisy’s impressive community science efforts, we have photographs of a living holotype (the original specimen upon which the name and description of the species is based), which is quite rare.”
Now that they have identified the country of origin for this new species, they also possess a fragment of the host plant on which the larvae had clearly fed. This plant piece was analyzed by Natural History Museum botanist, Sandy Knapp, who suggested it was likely a seed pod from a Mora species, a suggestion that was confirmed by DNA analysis conducted by Jordan. The large leguminous tree, Mora excelsa, thrives in the jungles of Central and South America.
In the final stages of their research, Daisy’s moth specimens were compared against the extensive range of species within the Carmenta genus—of which only half of the 100 identified species have been DNA barcoded. By analyzing the DNA and examining the body structure of the specimens against others documented, Mark and David concluded that this indeed represented an undiscovered species.
This research paper titled “A success for community science: Carmenta brachyclados sp. nov. (Lepidoptera, Sesiidae, Synanthedonini), a clearwing moth from Guyana discovered with its host plant indoors in Wales (United Kingdom)” was published in Nota Lepidopterologica.
