The primary entomological recorder's R. & M.L. Long provided selected records made from an 

 actinic-light moth trap situated at Platte Saline in Alderney and from the island of Jersey, while R.A. Austin 

 similarly summarised the insects for most of the Guernsey Bailiwick. All these records appeared in the 

 published Annual Reports for Alderney, Guernsey and Jersey. A more extensive listing of the recent 

 observations in Alderney and Jersey had been collated, but not published. For the Guernsey Bailiwick for 

 1996 however, R.A. Austin produced an extensive listing, which was computer printed and circulated by the 

 Societe Guernesiaise in 1997. Such extended lists had been produced earlier, but have not been seen by the 

 author. R.A. Austin has since 1997 also contributed selected Guernsey records for inclusion under the 

 general heading of 'Reports from Coastal Stations', in the recently formed journal Atropos. In the same 

 journal for 1997, P.D.M. Costen, a resident lepidopterist in Guernsey, contributed a paper that outlined 

 observations on the Lepidoptera fauna of his garden and the immediate environs (1997: 47-50). 



The final run-up to the New Millennium 



In 1997 on Alderney, it was announced that Lepidoptera records from the card index compiled by 

 Marie Mendham, were now in the Society's records and would eventually be computerised. Alderney 

 continued to receive extra attention, in that year by R. & M.L. Long, they added a substantial list of new 

 records for the island. A visit again took place in 1998. R.A. Austin in 1998 also contributed records from 

 the island, besides the usual Annual Reports of 1997 through to 1999, offering extensive selected listings for 

 the remainder of the Bailiwick. Austin also provided similar listings in the continuation of papers under the 

 heading 'Reports from Coastal Stations' in Atropos. M.L. & R. Long provided reasonable selected listings 

 for the island of Jersey from 1997-1999. Between all the island recorders it was amply shown that new 

 additions to the island's fauna were continuing unabatedly. Records for the islands were again supplemented 

 in the writings of B. Skinner & M. Parsons who reviewed the Lepidoptera immigrants for the years 1994 and 

 1996. A general overview of the British Microlepidoptera for 1996 was provided by D.J.L. Agassiz, et al., 

 but only one Channel Islands record was mentioned. In 1999, A.M. Riley, Rothamsted, Harpenden, provided 

 supplementary information on immigrant Lepidoptera caught in the Rothamsted Insect Survey light-traps in 

 1993 and 1994 in Guernsey and Jersey. Attention to the problems caused by the Brown-tail Moth {Euproctis 

 chrysorrhoea) was brought to public notice, through reports from Sark by P. De Carteret and J. Cochrane of 

 the Societe Sercquiaise, secondly by the more extensive coverages offered by a couple of articles in the 

 Guernsey Evening Press in 1998 and 1999. Further contributions by English lepidopterist's were proffered 

 by D.J. Wedd in 1999 with his paper on Lepidoptera in Jersey (1999: 47-50), which offered an interesting 

 independent impression of the island's fauna. Secondly, the important paper by I. Sims (1999: 17-25), 

 dealing with observations on rearing Luffia spp. and gave the latest views on their problematic taxonomy. 



A start to the literature of the year 2000 came from R.A. Austin in his contribution to the series of 

 articles under the heading of 'Reports from Coastal Stations' for the year 1999 (2000: 56-57). His 

 contributions continued with some highlight records in Guernsey for the same year in his Annual Report 

 (2000a: 556-558). The final report for the year 1999 came from the Annual Report from Jersey by R. Long 

 (2000: 560-564), who announced the culmination of the 5 year national project on Butterflies for the New 

 Millenium and that large numbers of records were forwarded to the British organisers who were to publish a 

 distribution atlas. R.A. Austin in his listing of the butterflies of the Bailiwick of Guernsey for 1999 

 (privately distributed by the Societe Guernesiaise), stated that at the completion of the five year Channel 

 Islands butterfly survey, 17,600 records had been contributed from the islands. This figure makes interesting 

 comparison to the 108 records that had been available for the 1970-82 survey. 



The highlight recordings from Long yielded a further 5 Lepidoptera species to be added to the 

 Channel Islands fauna, which included an additional butterfly, Melanargia galathea. The combined listings 

 of the two Bailiwick's, yet again provided no less than 11 additional species to the Channel Islands fauna, 

 showing that in the year 1999, as in previous years, there were still new discoveries to be made. The author's 

 1999 recording activities in Sark also provided many new records for the island, so there was every 

 indication to show that yet again the year's cumulative recording would provide a huge boost to our general 

 knowledge of the Channel Islands fauna and especially of the individual island distribution patterns. 



Another interesting feature to be seen from the results of the 1998 recording and the beginnings of 

 the listings for 1999 was that the numbers of microlepidoptera species for the islands were getting ever 

 closer to parity with the number of species for the macrolepidoptera. The final figures for the Lepidoptera 

 groups at the end of 1998 stood at 552 species of micro-moths, as compared to 573 macro-moths, with the 

 butterflies standing at 60 recorded species. By the end of 1999 parities grew even closer, with the micro's 

 closing the gap at 578 species and macro's at 581 species, butterflies had increased to 61 species. 



For the purposes of completing this present survey, all the available records up to and including the 

 year 2002 will be considered. Without a doubt the final faunal figure for the Channel Islands is expected to 

 be more than 1250 or 1300 recorded species. It must be considered however, that these figures are almost 

 entirely based on the published accounts, along with voucher records of material provided by the author's 



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