| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae |
Earis
Adults. Head smooth. Head with a frontal tuft. Eyes glabrous; not ciliated. Antennae of males ciliate. Tongue well developed. Labial palps medium; less than three times the diameter of the eyes; porrect to ascending.
Wingspan 20–24 mm. Head and thorax green, the abdomen paler. Forewings bright green; green; plain, or longitudinally streaked (with a yellowish costa); the patterning well marked to obscure; reniform undefined; orbicular undefined; claviform undefined. Hindwings white to whitish; terminally darkened; without a clear discal mark; without transverse lines; lacking vein 5. Vein 5 of the hindwings convergent on vein 4 near their bases. Retinaculum of males represented by a sub-median tuft of hairs. Middle tibiae without spines. Posterior tibiae without spines. Abdomen not crested.
Living adults found May and June, or August and September.
Larvae, pupae. Larvae feeding on young shoots of Salix; pupating on vegetative parts of the foodplant (in a tough, boat-shaped cocoon on a twig).
British representation. 3 species (two adventive); South-east England, Central-southern England, and English Midlands; biplaga* (Spiny Bollworm), clorana (Cream-bordered Green Pea), insulana* (Egyptian Bollworm).
Eariadinae.
Illustrations. • E. clorana (Cream-bordered Pea), and other Chloephorinae: Kirby. 21, Earias clorana (Cream-bordered Pea); 22, Pseudoips prasinana prasinana (Green Silver-lines); 23a-c, Bena bicolorana (Scarce Silver-lines). From Kirby 22.
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’.
