| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Lepidoptera-Geometridae |
Adults. Antennae of males dentate to simple (stout, flatly sub-dentate); shortly, evenly simply-ciliate.
Wingspan 27–30 mm. The outer margin of the forewing convexly curved. Forewings blackish grey; with a clear discal mark (this dark fuscous). The discal mark not dark-ringed. Forewings of the male without a fovea. Hindwings conspicuously patterned to plain; dark grey; predominantly grey; with a clear discal mark; transversely lined (with a dark median line, and a dark marginal line or dotted line).
Hindwings lacking a tubular vein 5. Vein 8 of the hindwings approximated to or anastomosed with the upper margin of the cell to the middle or beyond. Hindwing veins 6 and 7 separate.
Posterior tibiae of males 4-spurred.
Early stages. Larvae feeding on foliage of Prunus spinosa.
British representation. 1 species; South-east England and Central-southern England (local). Living adults found in April. A. distinctata (Grey Carpet, Sloe Carpet).
Subfamily. Ennominae.
Illustrations. • Larentiinae: Aleucis distinctata (Grey Carpet, Sloe Carpet: B. Ent. 447). • Aleucis distinctata: B. Ent. 447, legend+text. • Aleucis distinctata: B. Ent. 447, text cont.. • Aleucis, Cabera, Campaea, Gnophos, Hylaea, Lomagrapha, Theria: Newman 1869. 1, Campaea margaritata (Light Emerald); 2, Hylaea fasciaria (Barred Red); 3, Cabera exanthemata (Common Wave); 4a-f, Cabera pusaria (Common White Wave); 5, Lomographa bimaculata (White-pinion Spotted); 6, Lomographa temerata (Clouded Silver); 7, Aleucis distinctata (Sloe Carpet); 8a-b, Theria primaria, male and vestigially-winged female); 9, Gnophos obfuscatus (Scotch Annulet); 10a-c, Charissa obscurata (The Annulet). From Newman, 1869.
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 Lepidoptera-Geometridae. Version: 14th February 2021. delta-intkey.com’.
