Heart Moth (Dicycla oo)
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: | Dicycla oo |
| 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): NT; no long-term trend data available, but there has been a major decline in recorded 10km squares across England since pre-1970. Now restricted to just a few key sites. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Requires protection of open-grown mature oak trees and measures to ensure a continuous supply of such trees in the future. Also requires regular status surveys and protection from Oak Processionary Moth control measures. |
| 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): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Combination or other (detail in comments) |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Recovery potential likely to be low due to a combination of low dispersal ability and dependency on a habitat which would take decades or centuries to restore. Also, autecology poorly understood but very difficult to study. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Currently no population trends are available for abundance or distribution due to insufficient data. Encourage targeted surveys (light trapping) at all known and former sites every 2-3 years, as well as annual surveys at a few key sites. This is intended to enable production of a distribution trend in future, so that species status can be better assessed.
Action targets: 2. Biological status assessment exists
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments: Survey work can largely be undertaken by volunteers but requires overall coordination by Butterfly Conservation staff.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Mature and veteran oak trees at all key sites to be protected by highlighting their importance to land managers. Also develop planting projects to establish new oaks in hedgerows and parkland to provide future habitat continuity for this species.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Habitat creation
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Insecticide spraying to control Oak Processionary Moth (OPM) could threaten key populations, particularly at non-SSSI sites. Highlight all known Heart Moth sites to local authorities and agencies, to ensure inappropriate spraying is avoided.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Education/awareness raising
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
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.