The conifer swift moth (''Korscheltellus gracilis'') is a

swift moth The Hepialidae are a family of insects in the lepidopteran order. Moths of this family are often referred to as swift moths or ghost moths. Taxonomy and systematics The Hepialidae constitute by far the most diverse group of the infraorder Exopo ...

considered a forest pest in eastern and central

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

, from

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

south to

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

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 primarily on roots of

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

trees, and are weakly

polyphagous Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin ''vorare'', meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγε ...

, able to survive on

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

trees (e.g.

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...

es, ''Betula'') but preferring

balsam fir ''Abies balsamea'' or balsam fir is a North American fir, native to most of eastern and central Canada (Newfoundland west to central Alberta) and the northeastern United States (Minnesota east to Maine, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to ...

and

red spruce ''Picea rubens'', commonly known as red spruce, is a species of spruce native to eastern North America, ranging from eastern Quebec and Nova Scotia, west to the Adirondack Mountains and south through New England along the Appalachians to western ...

. They penetrate bark, but lesions on roots are shallow. These wounds may, however, provide easy entry for pathogenic

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

and

nematode The nematodes ( or grc-gre, Νηματώδη; la, Nematoda) or roundworms constitute the phylum Nematoda (also called Nemathelminthes), with plant-Parasitism, parasitic nematodes also known as eelworms. They are a diverse animal phylum inhab ...

s. ''K. gracilis'' has been shown to reduce survival on saplings, but adult trees have been found with more than 30 feeding scars on their roots. But trees that are weakened by

air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

or changes in soil chemistry may invite ''K. gracilis'' infestation. Adults can be found in woody areas between June and August. They are cryptically colored, but are active for 20–40 minutes each dawn and twilight, and occasionally come to light. In the conifer swift moth, courtship, mating, and egg laying occur during evening hours; only

oviposition The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typical ...

occurs in the morning. They are

Exoporia The Exoporia are a group of primitive Lepidoptera comprising the superfamilies Mnesarchaeoidea and Hepialoidea.Nielsen, E.S., Robinson, G.S. and Wagner, D.L. 2000. Ghost-moths of the world: a global inventory and bibliography of the Exoporia (Mne ...

, and females scatter eggs while in flight. It takes two years for the larvae to mature, so populations tend towards two-year cycles. Females emit

pheromones A pheromone () is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting like hormones outside the body of the secreting individual, to affect the behavio ...

to attract males, from organs on their hind wings.

References

Footnotes

Other

*http://bugguide.net/node/view/139456 ^{plain_url''.html" ;"title="WP:LINKROT.html" ;"title="'WP:LINKROT">plain url''">WP:LINKROT.html" ;"title="'WP:LINKROT">plain url''/sup>
*Kuenen LPS, DL Wagner, WE Wallner, and RT Carde. “Female sex-pheromone in Korscheltellus-gracilis (Grote) (Lepidoptera, Hepialidae).” Canadian Entomologist, 126(1): 31-41. 1994.
*Wagner, D, and J Rosovsky. “Mating systems in primitive Lepidoptera, with emphasis on the reproductive behaviour of Korscheltellus gracilis (Hepialidae).” Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 102(3): 277-303. 2008.
*Wallner, William E and David L, Bruce Parker, and Donald Tobi. “Bioecology of the conifer swift moth, Korscheltellus gracilis, a root feeder associated with spruce-fir decline.” In: Baranchikov, Yuri N.; Mattson, William J.; Hain, Fred P.; Payne, Thomas L., eds. Forest Insect Guilds: Patterns of Interaction with Host Trees; 1989 August 13–17; Abakan, Siberia, U.S.S.R. Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-153. Radnor, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station. 199-204.

Hepialidae
Moths described in 1865
Moths of North America
Taxa named by Carl Julius Bernhard Börner

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