Moth returns to county - 73 years after last sighting

A MAJOR conservation breakthrough has been made after a species of moth that was long thought to be extinct in England was rediscovered in a Kent nature reserve.

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Periclepsis cinctana, once known as the “Dover tortrix” and more recently renamed the “Tiree twist”, was last recorded in England in 1952.

Now the species has been found alive and well at the Kent Wildlife Trust's Lydden Temple Ewell reserve near Dover.

It was originally believed that the moth had only survived on the remote Scottish island of Tiree, and its rediscovery in England has stunned the conservation community.