Hoplodrina blues (1 Viewer)

I am confused over rustic/uncertain, and my CR won't pronounce on them from photos. To me this looks good for rustic. Any views?
Ken

Hi Ken,

For what it's worth that looks good for Rustic to me too, however I now make no effort to distinguish between the two in my trap. I remember reading a while back of some research that showed that a huge number of errors in identification were found when 'Rustics' and 'Uncertains' were double-checked by gen det. I believe my CR also only accepts specific records if confirmed by dissection.

David

Looks good for Rustic to me but the same thing happened in London when the CR did gen det on specimens labelled as Rustic that turned out to be Uncertain and vice-versa, I've kept one to send in for gen det that I am certain is Uncertain, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's a Rustic

Nick

Thanks, guys. I'm interested in what you say. So I don't need to feel such a numpty for having problems with the species pair!
As I've had both confirmed in the past, I'll just record them as rustic/uncertain in future.
It does make you wonder whether there are any other species that are being confidently named which are really a species pair - after all, it took people a long time to realise that marsh/willow tits were two species.
Ken