''Elophila nymphaeata'', the brown china mark, is a species of

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

Crambidae The Crambidae are the grass moth family of lepidopterans. They are variable in appearance, the nominal subfamily Crambinae (grass moths) taking up closely folded postures on grass stems where they are inconspicuous, while other subfamilies includ ...

. It was described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. It is found in Europe and across the

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...

to the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admini ...

and China. The moth is notable as its larva, like most members of the crambid subfamily

Acentropinae Acentropinae is a fairly small subfamily of the lepidopteran family Crambidae, the crambid snout moths. Species of this subfamily are exclusively found in wetlands and aquatic habitats. Systematics In modern treatments, the former subfa ...

, is aquatic and has tracheal

gill A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

s. 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 16–20 mm.The forewings vary from yellow-ochreous to rather dark fuscous ; basal area with dentate white and dark fuscous lines ; a white subcostal spot before first line ; lines whitish, obscure, dark-margined, first angulated above middle, second with deep abrupt sinuation inwards below middle ; median band almost occupied by three white dark edged blotches ; an irregular interrupted white dark-edged and dark-veined subterminal streak. Hindwings as forewings, but base white, median band white except discal spot, second lineless sinuate.The larva is light brownish ; dorsal line darker ; head light brown ; plate of 2 black-edged. In flat oval floating cases of leaf-fragments, on ''Potamogeton'', ''Hydrocharis'', ''Sparganium'', etcMeyrick, E., 1895 ''A Handbook of British Lepidoptera'' MacMillan, Londo
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Keys and description The moth flies from May to September depending on the location. The larvae feed on ''

Potamogeton ''Potamogeton'' is a genus of aquatic, mostly freshwater, plants of the family Potamogetonaceae. Most are known by the common name pondweed, although many unrelated plants may be called pondweed, such as Canadian pondweed (''Elodea canadensis'' ...

'', ''

Nymphaeaceae Nymphaeaceae () is a family of flowering plants, commonly called water lilies. They live as rhizomatous aquatic herbs in temperate and tropical climates around the world. The family contains nine genera with about 70 known species. Water li ...

'' and ''

Nuphar lutea ''Nuphar lutea'', the yellow water-lily, brandy-bottle, or spadderdock, is an aquatic plant of the family ''Nymphaeaceae'', native to northern temperate and some subtropical regions of Europe, northwest Africa, western Asia, North America, and ...

''.

Subspecies

*''Elophila nymphaeata nymphaeata'' *''Elophila nymphaeata silarigla'' Speidel, 1984 (Algeria and Morocco)

References

External links

Brown china-mark
at ''UKMoths''
Nature Spot

Lepiforum.de
Acentropinae Moths of Europe Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Aquatic insects Moths described in 1758 {{Acentropinae-stub