''Calophasia platyptera'', the antirrhinum brocade, 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 in 1788. It is found in Europe, the

Near East The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...

, the western

Sahara , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

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and

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Technical description and variation

''C. platyptera'' Esp. (= ''canterius'' Vill., ''tenera'' Hbn.) (29 b). Forewing pale grey, with slight partial darker dusting; the veins finely dark; a thin black streak on submedian fold from base traversing a faintly paler claviform stigma; lines marked by oblique costal strigae and double curved marks on inner margin, the outer line there preceded by a curved dark grey cloud; terminal area with a double series of black streaks in the intervals interrupted by a pale submarginal line; fringe chequered fuscous and grey; hindwing dingy grey in female, whitish in male; the terminal half fuscous in female, reduced to a narrow grey border in male— ab. ''subalbida'' Stgr. (29 c), (queried by him as possibly only the summer brood) from Sicily and Algeria is much whiter, the dark markings of the forewing obsolescent; the hindwing nearly wholly white; — ''olbiena'' Dup. (29 c) has the dark markings of forewing intensified and blackish brown. Larva like that of lunula, whitish with yellow lines and transverse black blotches; but these are smaller and more numerous, and the yellow lines are more interrupted at the segmental incisions 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 30 mm.

Biology

Adults are on wing from early spring to November. There are multiple generations per year. The larvae feed on the flowers and leaves of '' Antirrhinum'' and ''

Linaria ''Linaria'' is a genus of almost 200 species of flowering plants, one of several related groups commonly called toadflax. They are annuals and herbaceous perennials, and the largest genus in the Antirrhineae tribe of the plantain family Planta ...

'' species.

Gallery

File:Calophasia platyptera Enka.jpg, Imago File:Calophasia platyptera larva Enka.jpg, larva File:Calophasia platyptera pupa Enka.jpg , pupa

References

External links

*
''Fauna Europaea''''Lepiforum e. V.''
Cuculliinae Moths of Europe Fauna of Mauritania Moths of Asia Moths of the Middle East Taxa named by Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper Moths described in 1788 {{Cuculliinae-stub