| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae |
Adults. Head fairly smooth (with loosely appressed scales). Eyes glabrous; not ciliated. Antennae of males ciliate. Tongue poorly developed.
Wingspan 29–36 mm. Head and thorax pale brown, abdomen silky white. Forewings pale brown, silky-shiny; plain, or patterned transversely; the patterning well marked to obscure (plain, or with few to a complex of markings restricted to the stigmatal dots and dots mostly representing the outer line); reniform defined, or undefined; orbicular defined, or undefined; claviform undefined. Hindwings white, or whitish, or whitish-fuscous (more or less pearly); plain; with a clear discal mark, or without a clear discal mark; transversely lined, or without transverse lines (then with a short row of longitudinally elongated dots); exhibiting vein 5. Vein 5 of the hindwings weak; arising nearer to vein 6 than to vein 4. Thorax crested (anteriorly). Middle tibiae without spines. Posterior tibiae without spines; with appressed scales. Abdomen not crested.
Living adults found June and July.
Larvae, pupae. Larvae feeding on Phragmites, inside the stems, eating pith and perhaps larvae and pupae of other reed insects.
British representation. 1 species; South-east England, Central-southern England, and English Midlands; maritimus (Silky Wainscot).
Amphipyrinae.
Illustrations. • C. peltigera (Silky Wainscot), and related genera: Newman. 1, Panemeria tenebrata (Small Yellow Underwing); 2, Elaphria venustula (The Rosy Marbled); 3, Archanara geminipuncta (Twin-spotted Wainscot); 4(a) and (b), Archanara dissoluta (Brown-veined Wainscot); 5, Archanara algae ( Reed Wainscot); 6, Oria musculosa (Brighton Wainscot); 7, Rhizedra lutosa (Large Wainscot); 8(a)-(d), Charanyca trigrammica (Treble Lines); 9, Arenostola phragmitidis (Fen Wainscot); 10, Hoplodrina alsines (The Uncertain); 11, Hoplodrina blanda (The Rustic); 12, Caradrina morpheus (Mottled Rustic); 13, Caradrina clavipalpis (Pale Mottled Willow); 14(a)-(d), CHILODES peltigera (Silky Wainscot); 15, Stilbia anomala (The Anomalous); 16, Spodoptera exigua (Small Mottled Willow); 17, Acosmetia caliginosa (The Reddish Buff); 18, Coenobia rufa (Small Rufous); 19, Athetis pallustris (Marsh Moth). 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-Noctuidae. Version: 14th February 2021. delta-intkey.com’.
