The Strange Tale of Euclemensia woodiella Curtis, 1830.
May 16, 2017 14:50:08 GMT
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Post by nomad on May 16, 2017 14:50:08 GMT
The Strange Tale of Euclemensia woodiella Curtis, 1830.
It was a pleasant late Sunday afternoon in June 1829, it had been hard week for young Robert Crib, a textile factory worker in the Manchester's Cotton industry. He left his lodgings in Oldham Road to walk the five miles to Kersal Moor near Salford. He reflected that much of the Manchester area had once been moorland and now the Industrial Revolution had changed the small market town for ever.
Reaching the large expanse of the moor, Robert set about dusking with his net, for he was an amateur bug hunter. He followed a valley down into a boggy bottom with old alder trees and where the pendulous sedge grew tall and dense. Reaching an old hollow alder tree growing by Singleton brook, Robert noticed that small brightly colored moths were flying around the branches, he netted at least a dozen and popped then into his pill boxes, he noticed that they were indeed a pretty species with their lovely orange markings. Robert decided to call a halt to his moth hunting activities, for he had a long walk home, but there would be time to call at his favourite ale house. Before the end of the month, Robert would make several visits to the old alder tree by brook on Kersal Moor, where he managed to secure as many as fifty further specimens of the attractive Microlepidoprera.
What followed is an extraordinary but true story of how Robert Cribb's discovery on Kersal Moor became one of the great Lepidoptera Mysteries. Robert Cribb showed his specimens of his capture on Kersal Moor to other Manchester collectors but none of them knew the identity of his moth. A fellow collector R. Wood suggested that he give him a specimen to send to the famous London entomologist John Curtis. On receiving the specimen, Curtis saw at once that the moth he dubbed the "Manchester tinea " was new to the British list, naming it Pancalia woodiella Curtis 1830 in his British Entomology, assuming that R. Wood had discovered the moth, he wrote
" The only specimen I have seen of this beautiful Moth, which is larger than the others, is a female; it was taken on Kersall-moor the middle of last June by Mr. R. Wood, of Manchester, to whom I have the pleasure of dedicating it;—a most zealous and successful naturalist, to whose liberality I am indebted for many valuable insects." Curtis holotype specimen was in fact a male specimen.
John Curtis (1791–1862).
Euclemensia woodiella by John Curtis 1830, plate 304 from his British Entomology, Vol 6.
When Robert Cribb heard that the new moth he had found on Kersal Moor had been named by Curtis after Wood, he became angry and resentful. Cribb had given two specimens of E. woodiella to Samuel Carter of Lower Mosley Street, a fellow member of the Banksian Society, a Manchester natural Science group formed in 1829. Carter was shown a box containing up to fifty more specimens of E. woodiella but nothing would induce Cribb at that time to part with any. Other Manchester collectors including Carter, searched Kersal Moor for E. woodiella but when they were unsuccessful, some of them even suggested that Cribb's moths were obtained from a foreign dealer, a suggestion that incensed the discoverer of the new moth to the point where, he decided to give up collecting altogether and his nightly visits to the taverns became even more frequent.
Carter was eager to get more specimens of the rare moth and one evening met a none to sober Cribb in a tavern House, offering ten shillings for the entire box of specimens of E. woodiella. Cribb finally agreed to sell his box of specimens to Carter but mentioned that he had pawned his box of woodiella for five shillings to the landlady of a tavern house in Oldham Road, he would need half the money to get the box out of pawn and the other half of the payment when he had the box of moths, to this Carter accepted. In the ensuring weeks, Carter noticed that Cribb was doing his best to avoid him, but finally he managed to confront him, so anxious was Carter to get the box of E. woodiella, perhaps will his eye on a handsome profit, he offered Cribb a further ten shillings if they would go at that moment to retrieve the moths from the landlady of the beer house.
Reaching the tavern, Cribb asked the mistress for his moths, she replied " Oh you have come for your flies have you, I stuck it on the fire, as you never came to pay your score as promised”! At a meeting of the Manchester Natural History Club in 1840, the story of the E. woodiella was discussed in detail and one of those present was Joseph Sidebotham who recorded the details in the Entomologist for 1884. Another, more modern and current version of this story, which has been circulated by the staff at the Manchester Museum has Robert Cribb's landlady burning the moths in lieu of owed rent.
There now only remained three extant specimens of E. woodiella, Carter specimens, along with his collection were brought by the Manchester Museum after his death in 1865. (Sidebotham,1884) The Manchester Museum exchanged one of the E. woodiella specimens with Lord Walsingham, the Microlepidopterist and it is now in the British Museum of Natural History. In exchange for the specimen of E. woodiella, Walsingham was prepared to give the Manchester Museum a collection of over 2,000 British Micros, almost all the known species occurring in this country. The third specimen the type, had been purchased along with the John Curtis extensive collection by the Victoria Museum in Melbourne, Australia. John Curtis had not previously emigrated to Australia as stated by Ridout (2016).
Although collectors have searched Kersal Moor numerous times, not a single specimen of E. woodiella was seen there or anywhere else in Britain after its discovery by Cribb in June 1829 and the moth was presumed to have become extinct.
Commander John James Walker visited Victoria Museum in 1903 to view the lepidoptera in the John Curtis collection, which had been purchased by a director Frederick McCoy in 1863 for 567 pounds ; this unique assemblage is said to contain at least a 1000 type specimens of all insect orders. Walker was able to view the holotype of E. woodiella, he recorded " The type specimen of this beautiful insect is still in excellent preservation though mounted on rather too large pin, it still looks as if it would last, with care, for another century at least".
Walker was also able to read Curtis' Journals, regarding E. woodiella, the great entomologist had written " In June 1829, Kershall Moor near Manchester, R. Wood ; and many taken by his man, a drunken fellow, of whom Cater got two, which are now in Manchester Museum.". Wood in fact never took the living insect and Cribb the collector was not his man but a drunken fellow he seems to have become and his fate is unknown. Today a remnant of Kersal Moor remains, part of which is a golf course and the heathland is entirely surrounding by the buildings of Greater Manchester.
Writing the above in early 2017, I had not heard then of the discovery of a moth at Austin in Texas by a an insect photographer and the subsequent investigations by an English Leoidopterist who suggested the moth thought to E. schwarziella was in fact E. woodiella and the two might prove to be conspecific and that this information was revealed for the first time in a paper published in 2016. Like all good stories, this one would seem to have an ending.
In 2013, Varlie Burgh of the local North American photographers group took an image of a moth at the Johnson Wildlife Centre at Austin in Texas that was thought to be Euclemensia schwarziella Busck, 1901 and which was compared with the holotypes that species, although similar there were differences. Brian V. Ridout concluded in a recent paper (2016) that the moth photographed by Burgh was in fact the long lost E. woodiella and that there was a strong suggestion that E. schwarziella will prove to be a junior synonym of E. woodiella but more material is needed for study. According to Ridout the mystery of E. woodiella is now solved. He suggests that in all probability the moth appeared in Manchester when the moth was imported with oak bark than was used in the tanning industry. This is not a new suggestion Ridout points out that Bradley (1953) and Koster and Sinev (2003) had also suggested that E. woodiella would prove to be a North American species, the genus being unknown elsewhere in Europe. The very localized colony on Kersal Moor was almost certainly the direct result of a single imported gravid female that had reached that locality.
Other than E. woodiella there are at present four known species of Euclemensia of the Cosmopterigidae family found in North America. Two of these species are only known from holotype specimens and other species will almost certainly be discovered. In the American website bugnet guide, Varlie Burgh's photograph of the Austin Euclemensia still appears under the species E. schwarziella. The genus Euclemensia is associated with scale insects, small insects of the order Hemiptera that are found on oak trees. The unusual life history of the genus Euclemensia has been given in some detail by Rideout (2016).
The photograph of the Austin Euclemensia taken by Varlie Burgh which according to Ridout represents E. woodiella. This image is the copyright of Varlie Burgh and is shown here with her kind permission.
References.
Curtis J. 1830. British Entomology volume 6.
Rideout B.A. 2016 The 'Manchester Tinea', Euclemensia woodiella (Curtis, 1830) (Lepidoptera: Cosmopterigidae), an entomological mystery unravelled. Entomologist's Gazette 67: 257- 265.
Sidebotham J. 1884. The story of Ceophoria Woodiella. The Entomologist 17: pp 52-54.
Sutcliffe E. 1995. Strange tale of the Manchester Tinea Retold. Bulletin of the Amateur Entomologists' Society pp. 236-237.
Walker J.J. 1904. Some Notes on the Lepidoptera in the Curtis Collection. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 15: 187-192.
It was a pleasant late Sunday afternoon in June 1829, it had been hard week for young Robert Crib, a textile factory worker in the Manchester's Cotton industry. He left his lodgings in Oldham Road to walk the five miles to Kersal Moor near Salford. He reflected that much of the Manchester area had once been moorland and now the Industrial Revolution had changed the small market town for ever.
Reaching the large expanse of the moor, Robert set about dusking with his net, for he was an amateur bug hunter. He followed a valley down into a boggy bottom with old alder trees and where the pendulous sedge grew tall and dense. Reaching an old hollow alder tree growing by Singleton brook, Robert noticed that small brightly colored moths were flying around the branches, he netted at least a dozen and popped then into his pill boxes, he noticed that they were indeed a pretty species with their lovely orange markings. Robert decided to call a halt to his moth hunting activities, for he had a long walk home, but there would be time to call at his favourite ale house. Before the end of the month, Robert would make several visits to the old alder tree by brook on Kersal Moor, where he managed to secure as many as fifty further specimens of the attractive Microlepidoprera.
What followed is an extraordinary but true story of how Robert Cribb's discovery on Kersal Moor became one of the great Lepidoptera Mysteries. Robert Cribb showed his specimens of his capture on Kersal Moor to other Manchester collectors but none of them knew the identity of his moth. A fellow collector R. Wood suggested that he give him a specimen to send to the famous London entomologist John Curtis. On receiving the specimen, Curtis saw at once that the moth he dubbed the "Manchester tinea " was new to the British list, naming it Pancalia woodiella Curtis 1830 in his British Entomology, assuming that R. Wood had discovered the moth, he wrote
" The only specimen I have seen of this beautiful Moth, which is larger than the others, is a female; it was taken on Kersall-moor the middle of last June by Mr. R. Wood, of Manchester, to whom I have the pleasure of dedicating it;—a most zealous and successful naturalist, to whose liberality I am indebted for many valuable insects." Curtis holotype specimen was in fact a male specimen.
John Curtis (1791–1862).
Euclemensia woodiella by John Curtis 1830, plate 304 from his British Entomology, Vol 6.
When Robert Cribb heard that the new moth he had found on Kersal Moor had been named by Curtis after Wood, he became angry and resentful. Cribb had given two specimens of E. woodiella to Samuel Carter of Lower Mosley Street, a fellow member of the Banksian Society, a Manchester natural Science group formed in 1829. Carter was shown a box containing up to fifty more specimens of E. woodiella but nothing would induce Cribb at that time to part with any. Other Manchester collectors including Carter, searched Kersal Moor for E. woodiella but when they were unsuccessful, some of them even suggested that Cribb's moths were obtained from a foreign dealer, a suggestion that incensed the discoverer of the new moth to the point where, he decided to give up collecting altogether and his nightly visits to the taverns became even more frequent.
Carter was eager to get more specimens of the rare moth and one evening met a none to sober Cribb in a tavern House, offering ten shillings for the entire box of specimens of E. woodiella. Cribb finally agreed to sell his box of specimens to Carter but mentioned that he had pawned his box of woodiella for five shillings to the landlady of a tavern house in Oldham Road, he would need half the money to get the box out of pawn and the other half of the payment when he had the box of moths, to this Carter accepted. In the ensuring weeks, Carter noticed that Cribb was doing his best to avoid him, but finally he managed to confront him, so anxious was Carter to get the box of E. woodiella, perhaps will his eye on a handsome profit, he offered Cribb a further ten shillings if they would go at that moment to retrieve the moths from the landlady of the beer house.
Reaching the tavern, Cribb asked the mistress for his moths, she replied " Oh you have come for your flies have you, I stuck it on the fire, as you never came to pay your score as promised”! At a meeting of the Manchester Natural History Club in 1840, the story of the E. woodiella was discussed in detail and one of those present was Joseph Sidebotham who recorded the details in the Entomologist for 1884. Another, more modern and current version of this story, which has been circulated by the staff at the Manchester Museum has Robert Cribb's landlady burning the moths in lieu of owed rent.
There now only remained three extant specimens of E. woodiella, Carter specimens, along with his collection were brought by the Manchester Museum after his death in 1865. (Sidebotham,1884) The Manchester Museum exchanged one of the E. woodiella specimens with Lord Walsingham, the Microlepidopterist and it is now in the British Museum of Natural History. In exchange for the specimen of E. woodiella, Walsingham was prepared to give the Manchester Museum a collection of over 2,000 British Micros, almost all the known species occurring in this country. The third specimen the type, had been purchased along with the John Curtis extensive collection by the Victoria Museum in Melbourne, Australia. John Curtis had not previously emigrated to Australia as stated by Ridout (2016).
Although collectors have searched Kersal Moor numerous times, not a single specimen of E. woodiella was seen there or anywhere else in Britain after its discovery by Cribb in June 1829 and the moth was presumed to have become extinct.
Commander John James Walker visited Victoria Museum in 1903 to view the lepidoptera in the John Curtis collection, which had been purchased by a director Frederick McCoy in 1863 for 567 pounds ; this unique assemblage is said to contain at least a 1000 type specimens of all insect orders. Walker was able to view the holotype of E. woodiella, he recorded " The type specimen of this beautiful insect is still in excellent preservation though mounted on rather too large pin, it still looks as if it would last, with care, for another century at least".
Walker was also able to read Curtis' Journals, regarding E. woodiella, the great entomologist had written " In June 1829, Kershall Moor near Manchester, R. Wood ; and many taken by his man, a drunken fellow, of whom Cater got two, which are now in Manchester Museum.". Wood in fact never took the living insect and Cribb the collector was not his man but a drunken fellow he seems to have become and his fate is unknown. Today a remnant of Kersal Moor remains, part of which is a golf course and the heathland is entirely surrounding by the buildings of Greater Manchester.
Writing the above in early 2017, I had not heard then of the discovery of a moth at Austin in Texas by a an insect photographer and the subsequent investigations by an English Leoidopterist who suggested the moth thought to E. schwarziella was in fact E. woodiella and the two might prove to be conspecific and that this information was revealed for the first time in a paper published in 2016. Like all good stories, this one would seem to have an ending.
In 2013, Varlie Burgh of the local North American photographers group took an image of a moth at the Johnson Wildlife Centre at Austin in Texas that was thought to be Euclemensia schwarziella Busck, 1901 and which was compared with the holotypes that species, although similar there were differences. Brian V. Ridout concluded in a recent paper (2016) that the moth photographed by Burgh was in fact the long lost E. woodiella and that there was a strong suggestion that E. schwarziella will prove to be a junior synonym of E. woodiella but more material is needed for study. According to Ridout the mystery of E. woodiella is now solved. He suggests that in all probability the moth appeared in Manchester when the moth was imported with oak bark than was used in the tanning industry. This is not a new suggestion Ridout points out that Bradley (1953) and Koster and Sinev (2003) had also suggested that E. woodiella would prove to be a North American species, the genus being unknown elsewhere in Europe. The very localized colony on Kersal Moor was almost certainly the direct result of a single imported gravid female that had reached that locality.
Other than E. woodiella there are at present four known species of Euclemensia of the Cosmopterigidae family found in North America. Two of these species are only known from holotype specimens and other species will almost certainly be discovered. In the American website bugnet guide, Varlie Burgh's photograph of the Austin Euclemensia still appears under the species E. schwarziella. The genus Euclemensia is associated with scale insects, small insects of the order Hemiptera that are found on oak trees. The unusual life history of the genus Euclemensia has been given in some detail by Rideout (2016).
The photograph of the Austin Euclemensia taken by Varlie Burgh which according to Ridout represents E. woodiella. This image is the copyright of Varlie Burgh and is shown here with her kind permission.
References.
Curtis J. 1830. British Entomology volume 6.
Rideout B.A. 2016 The 'Manchester Tinea', Euclemensia woodiella (Curtis, 1830) (Lepidoptera: Cosmopterigidae), an entomological mystery unravelled. Entomologist's Gazette 67: 257- 265.
Sidebotham J. 1884. The story of Ceophoria Woodiella. The Entomologist 17: pp 52-54.
Sutcliffe E. 1995. Strange tale of the Manchester Tinea Retold. Bulletin of the Amateur Entomologists' Society pp. 236-237.
Walker J.J. 1904. Some Notes on the Lepidoptera in the Curtis Collection. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine 15: 187-192.
