Glow-in-the-dark caterpillars spotted using new technique

Two wildlife charges are recruiting volunteers to help detect shine caterpillars in the dark at night using ultraviolet lights.

The technique is expected to make the survey butterflies and moths faster and reveal secrets about their behavior and evolution.

Surveys are part of a conservation project covered by Bernwood Forest, River Ray and Otmoor Basin near Oxford.

A Manager of conservation of butterflies with headquarters with headquarters in Dorset, Steven Lofting, said that the new method “has the potential to change our understanding of its biology, distribution, abundance and ecology. It is really excitement.”

The training in this new technique is part of a project led by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (Bbowt), which has been granted £ 512,182 of the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The first group of volunteers was trained in the Trust Finemere Finemere Wooden Wood Reserve between Bikester and Aylesbury.

They were looking for caterpillars from the five species of the United Kingdom or the hair butterfly.

The black shell is in danger of extinction, brown hair and white letter hair are vulnerable, and green peel and purple hair have also declined in abundance and distribution since the 1970s.

Bbowt has now requested a total of £ 3.6 million for the reconnection of Bernwood, Otmoor and the Ray project, or what conservation of Butterfly is a key partner.

The scheme involves working with communities, farmers and landowners to restore habitats for threatened species on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border.

Emily Coulam, of The Trust, said that the data collected by volunteers would help them “develop projects that expect to increase the abundance and scope of hair butterflies through the creation and restoration of habitat.”

The conservation of the butterfly and Bbowt have surveyed their hair for decades, but the techniques have a slow and thorough leg.

For brown hair streak, both couples depend on the volunteers who leave in the middle of winter to search for small eggs the size of a ninter head in twine with magnifying glass.

Mr. Lofting said: “If we can shine a light on the bushes and thesis caterpillars that give us as an electric bulb, it could make it so much and faster to do surveys of these species.”

Butterflies surveys are important for conservation because they are known as indicator species, which it means and the healthy ecosystem health increases in its populations.

The official figures of the United Kingdom butterflies monitoring scheme revealed that 2024 was the fifth worst year for butterflies in the United Kingdom since the scheme began in 1976.

A survey has found that more than half of the species of butterflies in the United Kingdom have population in the long -term decline.