Glasgow & SW Scotland Butterflies

Transparent Burnet (Zygaena purpuralis) like the other burnet moths is a striking insect. Instead of red spots, the Transparent Burnet sports bars of red on its transparent wings - hence its name.

Transparent Burnet Credit: Neil Gregory

The strongholds of this amazing moth are the Hebridean islands of Mull, Skye, Ulva, Eigg, Canna, and Rhum and the only records on the mainland are around Oban and also in parts of Kintyre. It was seen on the islands of Kerrera and Lismore in 1960 but there are no recent records.

Transparent Burnet Credit: Tom Prescott

The adults are day-flying in warm sunshine from early June to July and the caterpillars feed on Wild Thyme (Thymus praecox). It overwinters as a caterpillar. Its habitat is steep, heathy and grassy south and south-west facing slopes and under-cliffs. Sites with Transparent Burnet are normally within a few km of the coast on cliffs or steep hillside where Wild Thyme grows in abundance.

There are two methods of surveying this spectacular moth. Searching for the day-flying adults on sunny days from early June to July is the obvious one and if successful, you get the reward of seeing this beautiful moth. Alternatively, during April and early May, you can look for the full-grown caterpillars which are easy to spot on the low growing Wild Thyme  which is their foodplant.

Transparent Burnet nectaring on wild thyme Credit: John Knowler

All the historical Transparent Burnet sites in vice-county 98 (Argyll Main) are shown on the map below but many of them are not recent and these sites need revisting to check that the moth is still present. Also,  it is very likely that Transparent Burnet is under-recorded.  So once you have checked out one of the known sites and have learnt to recognise the habitat and hopefully seen the insect itself, it is hoped that you might go on to look for Transparent Burnet as other potential sites along the coast.

SAFETY ADVICE: steep coastal cliffs which Transparent Burnet inhabits are potentially dangerous places should you slip so don’t put yourself at risk during these surveys. The adults are conspicuous insects and use of a pair of binoculars to scan suitable sites on cliffs is recommended and avoids the need for accessing steep slopes.

Transparent Burnet sites in Vice-County 98

 
A closer up view of most of the records is shown in the two maps below:

Transparent Burnet sites around Loch Feochan

Transparent Burnet sites around Glen Lonan

And the grid references of all the sites and dates of last record are shown in the Table below. You can download the maps and Table in a Word document by clicking here.

Written by Andrew Masterman

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