''Dactylethrella bryophilella'' 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 family Gelechiidae. It was described by Walsingham in 1891. It is found in the

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

(Equateur) and

Gambia The Gambia,, ff, Gammbi, ar, غامبيا officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. It is the smallest country within mainland AfricaHoare, Ben. (2002) ''The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia'', Kingfisher Publicatio ...

. 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 14–18 mm. The forewings are dull white, speckled and blotched with brown. The basal third is irrorated with brown scales and there is a small fuscous spot near the costa towards the base. Immediately beyond the basal third is a large reniform greyish fuscous spot, having the appearance of two roundish contiguous spots, one reaching over the fold, the other, about the same size, above it. Beyond this is a transverse ill-defined band of brown about the middle of the wing, starting from the costal but not attaining to the dorsal margin, wider towards its upper end. This band is followed by another greyish fuscous rounded spot, larger than either of the other two, from the anal angle along the apical margin, but not quite reaching to the costal margin, where there are three fuscous spots, two small and one larger. There is a slender shining leaden grey line borders the wing, running from the anal angle along the extreme apical margin, and around the apex along the base of the costal cilia and lying on the end of the cell. This spot is followed by another large brown patch, occupying the whole apical portion of the wing. The hindwings are pale leaden grey.Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1891 (1) : 108
The larvae feed on ''

Tephrosia vogelii ''Tephrosia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae. It is widespread in both the Eastern and Western Hemisphere, where it is found in tropical and warm-temperate regions. The generic name is derived from the Greek word τ ...

''.

References

Moths described in 1891 Dactylethrella {{Chelariini-stub