| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae |
Adults. Head rough. Eyes glabrous; ciliated. Antennae of males shortly ciliate. Tongue well developed. Labial palps medium to long; ascending.
Wingspan 34–46 mm. Head and thorax coloured like the forewings, abdomen like the hindwings. 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 (?).
British representation. 2 species (both adventive); South-east England; acuta (Tunbridge Wells Gem)*, chalcites* (Golden Twin Spot).
Plusiinae.
Illustrations. • C. acuta (Tunbridge Wells Gem), with other adventive or casual Plusiinae: Swain. 1, Syngrapha interrogationis (Scarce Silver Y); 2, Chrysodeixis chalcites (Golden Twin Spot); 3, Chrysodeixis acuta (Tunbridge Wells Gem); 4, Ctenoplusia limbirana (Scar Bank Gem); 5, Macdunnoughia confusa (Dewick's Plusia); 6, Euchalcia variabilis (Purple-shaded Gem); 7, Diachrysia orichalcea (Slender Burnished Brass). Swain, 1961.
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’.
