Goat Moth (Cossus cossus)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - moth > Moth |
| Red List Status: | (Not Relevant) [(not listed)(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Cossus cossus |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Linnaeus, 1758) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | (not listed) |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | GB Red List (Fox et al. 2019): LC and no trend data available, but there has been a major decline in recorded 10km squares across England since pre-1970. Distribution is now fragmented. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | The main requirement is to ensure occupied trees are retained; these could potentially be removed as part of routine management work. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | No |
| Justification: | This species would not benefit from untargeted management |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Life history factor/s |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Long generation times and tends to be reliant on the same host trees year on year, hence likely to be a slow coloniser of newly-available habitat |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Host trees should be mapped and their importance highlighted to land managers to ensure they are retained
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Advice & support
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites: Any sites with known host trees.
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.