BUTTERFLY conservationists in Hampshire have received a £24,000 grant to protect a rare species of moth.

The county branch of Butterfly Conservation received £23,737 from the government’s Landfill Communities Fund to restore the habitat of the endangered Striped Lychnis in Magdalen Hill Down, near Winchester.

The moth’s main food source, dark mullein, grows on road verges there, but shrubs and rank vegetation have consumed much of the bare chalk needed for the plant to grow.

Jayne Chapman, Butterfly Conservation’s reserves officer, said the grant will help the Hampshire branch preserve the habitat and raise awareness of conservation in Magdalen Hill.

Striped Lychnis are “really restricted to southern England,” she said.

“If you lose the remaining habitat you lose the moth and it becomes extinct. It won’t just move up to Northumberland.”