beehives. All these will have English vernacular names that are freely used in most types of literature written in, 

 or translated into the English language. 



As for the true microlepidoptera families, generally known as those ranging in our (British Fauna) 

 system of classification from the Micropterigidae to the Pyralidae, or the Pterophoridae, (depending on the 

 systematic arrangement followed), it is accepted that although in a majority of cases they have vernacular 

 names, they are not acknowledged, though they form over 50% of the Lepidoptera fauna. In the main, this 

 deficiency in usage of vernacular names for the micro's, reflects the relative difficulties that have always existed 

 in accurately identifying the species. This is predominantly due to their generally small size and the need to 

 dissect specimens of most species for the microscopic examination of their external reproductive organs and of 

 the abdominal structures, sometimes even the necessity to prepare wings and heads to detect the characteristics 

 that will help in distinguishing the families, genera and species. It is also acknowledged for that the micro-moths 

 are far less well-known than the macro-moths. The general feeling of today is that it is anyway so difficult to 

 arrive at an accurate determination, partly due to the preparatory work involved and the generally more confused 

 state of the existing taxonomic classification, that the scientific name is the only valid name that ultimately 

 matters. Vernacular names in this case could be cumbersome and confusing, so why bother using them. 

 However, it is generally accepted that only those microlepidoptera species that have become relatively well- 

 known, will over the years, warrant a vernacular name. These names have been created for species that have 

 significantly reached either agricultural or economic importance and are therefore relevant for communication in 

 the more general literature for field agricultural Entomology, Horticulture, by Public Health Departments and 

 the Quarantine offices. 



Nevertheless, though it is now not fashionable to apply vernacular names to all species of 

 microlepidoptera, as far as the British fauna is concerned, there does exist however, available names in the 

 literature for most known species. In Haworth's Lepidoptera Britannica dating from 1803-1828, scientific and 

 vernacular names were used throughout. During the 1940's and 1950's, I.R.P. Heslop had published several 

 editions of his Indexed Checklists and in them, he created vernacular names for all of the then known species. 

 Though occasionally fanciful, they are still quite acceptable. After their initial publication however, the 

 lepidopterists of the period regarded these names as unnecessary and they were never really adopted. Although 

 in recent times these vernacular names have been treated with some disdain by both professional and amateur 

 lepidopterists, they still indisputably form a part of the history of British entomological literature, and if nothing 

 else, though some are distinctly germane, they at the very least have some whimsical value. Within the British 

 species of Psychidae, the parthenogenctic Dahlica lichenella (Linnaeus) has been given the English vernacular 

 name Lichen Case-bearer. It seems that Heslop's contribution of the name Linnaeus's Virgin Smoke was not so 

 acceptable. Within the section of this book covering the records of Channel Islands Lepidoptera, the names first 

 coined by Haworth and later by Heslop are, where applicable within the microlepidoptera, given along with the 

 scientific names. They in no way mislead in the species identifications and merely serve to add some extra 

 information, even though they may sound somewhat capricious or apparently vacuous. Most of these names are 

 perhaps a little more fanciful than the more imaginative vernacular names we have learned to accept in both the 

 butterflies and macromoths, and indeed there is certainly no harm in expressing a little individualistic subtle 

 humour, or imaginative flair, even in Entomology. 



Without this occasional touch of the more imaginative flair for possible whimsy, the world's 

 entomological literature would be without some very delightful scientific and vernacular names. Some scientific 

 names that the late Polish entomologist Stanislaw Bleszynski had described in the Crambinae, certainly 

 displayed a flair for the imaginative and he was hardly alone in this whimsical attitude. Within the literature are 

 examples of inventiveness in scientific names that caused some notable angry furore among the more classically 

 minded entomologists and received sharply worded rebuffs in the journals of their day. Notwithstanding, a 

 couple of the Blesznski generic and specific scientific names which grace foreign fauna in the Crambinae 

 literature are distinctively charming, like the species from Bolivia named as La cucaracha. Bleszynski once 

 informed the author that he would dearly like to describe a further species for the genus that he could name after 

 the opera La Boheme, but sadly, no suitable species was discovered. As it has always been customary to name 

 genera and species after people, famous or otherwise, Bleszynski chose, with much credit, to describe from the 

 Sudan this time, another species new to science, the beautiful rare moth Leonardo davincii. 



50 



