The snow cover has driven me to the microscope and a quick perusal of a couple of light trap catches from earlier this month.
Barnfield had two species of booklouse - Graphopsocus cruciatus and Ectopsocus petersi present along with two species of winter gnat - Trichocera regelationis* and T. annulata. The Allotments trap produced a third species of winter gnat - T. saltator plus a fungus gnat Schwenkfeldina carbonaria along with a Mycetophilid that's proving tricky to pin down and a weevil that I'll have a crack at using Joy. Both traps have large numbers of Chironomids that I'm steering clear of for the moment (if, come December, I'm in need of a few species to get me to the target...)
List now stands at 79. Roll on the thaw.
*NB. The winter gnats have been identified using the RES key (Coe, Freeman & Mattingly. 1950) so if anyone knows if I need to update these IDs in light of recent advances then let me know.
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