| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae |
Adults. Eyes glabrous; ciliated.
Wingspan about 40–44 mm (limbirena). Head and thorax coloured like the forewings, the abdomen lighter like the hindwings. Forewings shiny, rich purplish grey-brown, with shining silvery-white median marks; purplish marked or tinged; complexly patterned; the patterning well marked; predominantly shining-metallic, or exhibiting metallic-enamelled effects; reniform undefined; orbicular defined. Hindwings whitish-fuscous and grey, or fuscous and grey; terminally darkened; 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. Middle tibiae without spines. Abdomen crested.
Living adults found in September.
Larvae, pupae. Ventral prolegs 4, or 6 (?). Larvae feeding on Salvia, Verbascum, Althaea; pupating on vegetative parts of the foodplant (?).
British representation. 2 species (both adventive); South-east England and Central-southern England; accentifera*, limbirena* (Scar Bank Gem).
Plusiinae.
Illustrations. • C. limbirana (Scar Bank 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’.
