''Compsoctena media'' 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 ...
in the
Eriocottidae
Eriocottidae or Old World spiny-winged moths is a family of insects in the order Lepidoptera whose position relative to other members of the superfamily Tineoidea is currently unknown. There are two subfamilies, Compsocteninae and Eriocottinae.
...
family. It was described by Walsingham in 1897. It is found in the
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...
.
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 16 mm. The forewings are whitish cinereous, mottled and reticulated with brown and with a series of brownish patches along the costa: three small ones before the middle, of which the first two form the upper edge of an ill-defined basal patch, a broad one on the middle of the costa, forming the upper end of a somewhat broken transverse fascia inclining slightly inwards to the dorsum, and two beyond the middle, the first small, the second larger, before the apex, also blending with a shade of brownish scales beneath it. The interspaces between these spots on the outer half of the costa are ochreous, the costal cilia immediately above the apex being also ochreous, and a slight ochreous shade runs through the base of the cilia along the termen, in which are three more or less distinct lines of brown scales, the outer extremities of the cilia are greyish. The hindwings are purplish grey.
Walsingham, Thomas de Grey 1897a. Western Equatorial African Micro-Lepidoptera. - Transactions of the entomological Society of London 1897(1); p. 63
References
Moths described in 1897
Compsoctena
Insects of the Central African Republic
{{Eriocottidae-stub