''Apamea sublustris'', the reddish light arches, 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 ...

. The species was first described by

Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper (2 June 1742 – 27 July 1810) was a German zoologist and naturalist. Born in Wunsiedel in Bavaria, he was professor of zoology at Erlangen university. Life and work Eugen and his brother Friedrich were intro ...

in 1788. It is found in central and southern Europe (including southern

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 ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

and the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

Description

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 42–48 mm. It differs from the very similar ''

Apamea lithoxylaea ''Apamea lithoxylaea'', the light arches, is a moth of the family Noctuidae. The species was first described by Michael Denis and Ignaz Schiffermüller in 1775. It is distributed throughout Europe, the Caucasus, Armenia, Asia Minor and Turkey, an ...

'' in having the forewing shorter, more strongly suffused with brown, or brownish grey, especially along costa which in ''A. lithoxylaea'' is whitish: stigmata much plainer; outer line more continuously lunulate-dentate, the median shade at its lower extremity extending from inner to outer line; the terminal brown shades more distinct; the brown clouding on submedian fold before submarginal line absent; hindwing with better-defined markings.

Biology

Adults are on wing from June to July. The larvae feed on the roots of various grasses, including

fescues ''Festuca'' (fescue) is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the grass family Poaceae (subfamily Pooideae). They are evergreen or herbaceous perennial tufted grasses with a height range of and a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on every ...

References

External links

* * Taxonomy
''Moths and Butterflies of Europe and North Africa''''Lepiforum e.V.''''De Vlinderstichting''
Apamea (moth) Moths of Europe Moths of Asia Taxa named by Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper Moths described in 1788 {{Apamea-stub