| | 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 30–40 mm. Forewings grey and sepia brown; brown and grey; purplish marked or tinged to rosy marked or tinged; complexly patterned; the patterning well marked (mottled and marbled, light brown, rosy-whitish and dark fuscous, and exhibiting medianly a silvery-white ‘Y’-shaped mark indicative of a plusia); exhibiting metallic-enamelled effects (?); reniform defined; orbicular defined; claviform undefined. Hindwings pale fuscous; terminally darkened; with a clear discal mark to 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 August and September.
Larvae, pupae. Ventral prolegs 4, or 6 (?). Larvae feeding on Dicot herbs, especially Cruciferae.
British representation. 2 species; South-east England, Central-southern England, and South-west England; ni (Ni Moth), vittata* (Streaked Plusia, adventive).
Plusiinae.
Illustrations. • T. ni (Ni Moth), with 5 other genera of Plusiinae. 1, Abrostola trigemina (Dark Spectacle); 2, Abrostola triplasia (The Spectacle, or Light Spectacle); 3, TRICHOPLUSIA ni (Ni Moth); 4, Diachrysia chrysitis (Burnished Brass); 5, Diachrysia orichalcea (Scarce Burnished Brass); 6, Plusia festucae (Gold Spot); 7, Autographa gamma (Silver Y); 8, Autographa jota (Plain Golden Y); 9, Autographa pulchrina (Beautiful Golden Y); 10, Autographa bractea (Gold Spangle); 11, Syngrapha interrogationis (Scarce Silver Y). 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’.
