''Conopomorpha flueggella'' 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

Gracillariidae Gracillariidae is an important family of insects in the order Lepidoptera and the principal family of leaf miners that includes several economic, horticultural or recently invasive pest species such as the horse-chestnut leaf miner, ''Cameraria ...

. It is known from

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

.Taxonomy and biology of two seed-parasitic gracillariid moths (Lepidoptera, Gracillariidae), with description of a new species
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Adult

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 8-15.5 mm. The head is grey to greyish brown and the frons is greyish white. The thorax and tegula are dark brown. The forewing is narrow and the costal and dorsal margins are nearly parallel. The ground colour is greyish brown to dark brown. The hindwing and cilia are greyish brown and the abdomen is grey, although the first two segments are shining white. It is similar to '' Conopomorpha litchiella'', but distinguishable by the uniformly greyish brown to dark brown forewing with three pairs of stripes and differences in the genitalia. Furthermore, in ''Conopomorpha litchiella'', the forewing is whitish yellow in distal portion and 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 ...

is yellowish green.

Egg

The egg is flat, elliptic and about 0.3 mm in length and 0.2 mm in width. There is a transparent membrane in the surface and an irregular meshy stripe on the egg shell. It is milky white and semitransparent but turns straw yellow when close to hatching.

Larva

Young

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ass ...

larvae are flat, yellowish white, semitransparent and with distinct segments. Mature larvae are 5.5-7.0 mm. The head is deep brown and the anterior half to two-thirds of each segment on the thorax and abdomen is red, while the remainder is white.

Pupa

The pupa is 4–6 mm, fusiform and greenish yellow in the early pupal stage, changing gradually to yellowish brown and eventually blackish brown before eclosion (emergence).

Cocoon

The cocoon is 7–9 mm, white, flat elliptic, with some white grains attached on surface.

Life history

There are two generations per year in Tianjin, China. Mature larvae quit the fruits of their food plant before they are ripe and pupate on leaves or leaf litter. The pupal stage lasts from nine to twelve days. Adults of the second generation hibernate. Adults occur from May to the first ten days of June, and from the last ten days of June to the first ten days of August. Adults can emerge during the whole day, but the peak occurs in the morning. The mating occurs usually in the morning. At night, the moths are actively drinking nectar and ovipositing. A parasitic

Ichneumonid The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps, Darwin wasps, or ichneumonids, are a family (biology), family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 2 ...

species was reared from pupae collected in the field.

Food plant

The larvae feed on the seeds of '' Flueggea suffruticosa''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5162185 Conopomorpha Moths described in 2011