| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of grass moths (Pyralidae-Crambinae and Schoenobiinae) |
Adults. Face without a conical hairy prominence. Proboscis functional. Labial palps short.
Wingspan 30–34 mm. Forewings pale ochreous, irrorated grey with a few black scales, with a conspicuous narrow creamy median longitudinal stripe which beyonf the middle bends slightly towards the tornus; a fine yellowish sub-dorsal longitudinal stripe, and creamy striations along the costa and along subterminal veins; a small greyish discal spot; a fine, curved ochreous subterminal line, and a zigzag brown line adorned with silver-metallic scales in the whitish area between this and the termen; the fringe grey, glistening-metallic and incorporating a white line. The fringe not glistening-metallic. Forewing apices somewhat pointed; termen markedly sinuate. Ground colour of the forewings ochreous to brown. Forewings conspicuously patterned with contrasting colours. The patterning complex; comprising both longitudinal streaking and transverse markings (the latter restricted to subterminal lines). Forewings without a median line; transversely dark-lined towards the termen; the subterminal lines conspicuously white-edged; with a strong white median streak (plus streaks on either side); the median streak without a cross-bar; without conspicuous white marks at or near the apex. Forewing vein 7 arising from vein 8. Hindwings pale grey (with a white fringe); plain, or with a subterminal dark line and fuscous termen; very light grey, whiter basally and tending darker towards the termen, marked only by a very fine dark terminal line; the fringe plain white.
Distribution and habitats. Found only in southern England (an occasional immigrant from southern Europe). England (E. Kent in 1935, S. Essex in 1996). British species: A. tentaculella. Adults abroad July and August.
Larvae. Larvae feeding on monocots; Poaceae.
Subfamily. Crambinae.
Illustrations. • A. disparalis, A. palpella, A. tentaculella: Hübner (1796–1813). Ancylomyia Hubner: Current binomials for Hübner's original illustrations of the genus (1796–1813): 32, A. palpella; 230, A. tentaculella; 257 and 258, A. disparalis. See accompanying document for nomenclatural details. • Ancylolomia: Le Cerf & Herbulot.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, 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. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of grass moths (Pyralidae-Crambinae and Schoenobiinae). Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.
