British and Irish moths: an illustrated guide to selected difficult species (covering the use of genitalia characters and other features) aims to make available up-to-date information on the identification of difficult macro-moths, beyond what is currently available in the field guides. Written by moth experts Martin Townsend, Jon Clifton and Brian Goodey, 72 larger moth species (plus their subspecies and forms) are included.

Much of the Guide is focussed on genitalia characteristics, although there are discussions of other characteristics such as wing markings (see example pages shown below). It provides the next step for those wishing to make definitive determinations of difficult moths such as ear moths, dark/grey daggers, copper underwings and the November Moth group.

The Guide runs to 91 pages and contains over 130 superb colour illustrations. It is spiral bound to aid use and has protective plastic covers.

Butterfly Conservation has now sold out of copies! However, we understand that limited supplies are still available through specialist natural history retailers so it is worth have a look on the internet to try to secure a copy.

Erratum: Figure 48 (female Satin Beauty Deileptenia ribeata) on p.41 of the Guide is incorrect and, as a consequence, the key on p.40 is also incorrect. A corrected version of pp.40-41 is available here (note that this is a large 4mb file).