General comments:
Widespread and common resident.

Male Gypsy moths have progressed from being rare immigrants in `the old days` to regular immigrants in the first twenty years of the 21st century. In parallel with this, there have been known importations of both the allegedly flightless female and of egg masses - including at a site in central London. Migrating males continue to arrive and now are impossible to separate from locally bred males, because the species is established as a breeding resident across the entire of our two counties.

Although the moth can without question cause enormous damage through defoliation of trees, many of the horror stories are greatly exaggerated. In most of Europe the moth exists throughout its range in low number; occasionally it has massive population explosions and is then undoubtedly a pest, but for the rest of time it is little more than a normal member of the insect fauna. This may, however, be over-simplistic, since current thinking is that a different and non-irruptive genetic strain of the moth is the one that has established itself in southern Britain. This is supported by the fact that the females of the problem species, which are not supposed to be able to fly very far, are without doubt capable of sustained flight in Herts and Middlesex.

	Retained Specimen / Photograph will be Required.

Recorded in 35 (85%) of 41 10k Squares.
First Recorded in 1933.
Last Recorded in 2023.