| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae |
Adults. Head rough. Eyes glabrous; not ciliated. Antennae of males ciliate.
Wingspan 41–46 mm. Thorax and abdomen coloured like the forewings. Forewings ochreous; ochreous; neither purplish nor rosy marked or tinged; patterned transversely; the patterning well marked (with sharp, dark first and second lines, and a dotted subterminal line); patterned darker; reniform defined; orbicular defined (the stigmata delicately, concentrically light-and-dark outlined); claviform undefined. Hindwings light fuscous, brownish, and pinkish (posteriorly fuscous, with the terminal edge ferrugineous); basally and terminally darkened, or plain; without a clear discal mark; transversely lined to without transverse lines; exhibiting vein 5. Vein 5 of the hindwings strong (distally); arising nearer to vein 6 than to vein 4. Thorax crested (front and rear). Middle tibiae with spines. Posterior tibiae with spines. Abdomen not crested.
Living adults found August to October.
Larvae, pupae. Larvae feeding on Quercus.
British representation. 1 species; South-east England (one record only); acetosellae (The Pale Stigma).
Noctuinae.
Illustrations. • M. acetosellae (Pale Stigma), with other adventive Noctuidae. 1, Mesogana acetosellae (Pale Stigma); 2, Graphania dives; 3, Pseudenargia ulicis (The Berber); 4, Sedina buettneri (Blair's Wainscot). 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’.
