British Insects: the Genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae
British Insects: the Genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae | |
Head rough. Eyes glabrous; ciliated. Antennae of males shortly ciliate. Tongue well developed. Labial palps medium to long; ascending.
Wingspan 34–46 mm. Forewings shiny purplish brown or grey-brown, with shining silvery-white median marks; complexly patterned; the patterning well marked; exhibiting metallic-enamelled effects; reniform defined to undefined; orbicular undefined. Hindwings fuscous and yellowish (C. chilodes), or fuscous and grey; plain (C. chilodes), or terminally darkened (C. acuta); without a clear discal mark; without transverse lines; exhibiting vein 5. Vein 5 of the hindwings strong; arising nearer to vein 4 than to vein 6; convergent on vein 4 near their bases. Thorax crested. Middle tibiae without spines. Posterior tibiae with spines; rough-scaled. Abdomen crested.
Living adults found May to August.
Larvae, pupae. Ventral prolegs 4, or 6 (?). Larvae feeding on various, unrelated Dicot herbs and Lonicera; pupating on vegetative parts of the foodplant (?).
General comments. Head and thorax coloured like the forewings, abdomen like the hindwings.
British representation. 2 species (both adventive); South-east England; acuta (Tunbridge Wells Gem)*, chalcites* (Golden Twin Spot).
Classification. Plusiinae.
Illustrations: • Adventive or casual Plusiinae.
To view the illustrations with detailed captions, go to the interactive key. This also offers full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. British insects: the genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae. Version: 9th June 2008. http://delta-intkey.com’.
