''Apamea lateritia'', the scarce brindle, is a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

of the family

Noctuidae The Noctuidae, commonly known as owlet moths, cutworms or armyworms, are a family of moths. They are considered the most controversial family in the superfamily Noctuoidea because many of the clades are constantly changing, along with the other f ...

. It is found in much of the

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

. It is a sporadic migrant in

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

, where it is recorded from the east and south-east coasts.UKMoths
/ref>

Technical description and variation

''P.lateritia'' Hufn. (= ''molochina'' Hbn.) (39 i). Forewing dull purplish redbrown, darker towards the costa; costal area and veins sprinkled with white scales; inner and outer lines double, lunulate-dentate, the teeth marked dark and light on the veins; claviform stigma absent; orbicular and reniform dark red brown with incomplete white annuli, the orbicular generally obscure and without white outline; submarginal line indistinct; the terminal area, except at apex, rather darker; hindwing fuscous, greyer towards base, with the cell spot and veins dark; — ab. ''borealis'' Strand, from Lapland, is still darker brown; — ab. ''derufata'' ab. nov. (39 i) is pale purplish red, without the dark redbrown tinge; — the form ''expallescens'' Stgr. (39 i),from Turkestan and Tibet, is pale reddish ochreous, flushed with brown or grey brown, the terminal area always dark brown; — ab. ''festiva'' ab. nov. (40 a), from Transcaucasia, rather smaller than ''expallescens'', is pale brickred, somewhat roughly scaled; lastly, ab. ''sordida'' ab. nov. (40 a), a decidedly smaller form, is dirty brownish fuscous, with the inner and outer lines well-marked and approximated on inner margin; of this a fairly long series, all males is in the Tring Museum, from Pescocostanzo, Italy. Larva dull dark grey; the head brown; the thoracic and anal plates black. Warren. W. in Seitz, A. Ed., 1914 ''Die Großschmetterlinge der Erde'', Verlag Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart Band 3: Abt. 1, Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen eulenartigen Nachtfalter, 1914 The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

is about 42–50 mm.

Biology

Adults are on wing from June to August. The

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e feed on the roots of

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

es.

References

External links

Lepiforum.deVlindernet.nl
lateritia Moths of Asia Moths of Europe Taxa named by Johann Siegfried Hufnagel Moths described in 1766 {{Apamea-stub