''Epinotia nanana'', the European spruce needleminer, 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 Tortricidae. It is found from northern and central Europe to

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

. ''Epinotia nanana'' has been found in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, and

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

in Canada, and from

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

and

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

in the United States. 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 ...

e feed on most species of

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

, but prefer

Norway spruce ''Picea abies'', the Norway spruce or European spruce, is a species of spruce native to Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. It has branchlets that typically hang downwards, and the largest cones of any spruce, 9–17 cm long. It is very close ...

. The nearly full-grown larvae

overwinter Overwintering is the process by which some organisms pass through or wait out the winter season, or pass through that period of the year when "winter" conditions (cold or sub-zero temperatures, ice, snow, limited food supplies) make normal activi ...

in mined needles and resume feeding in the early spring in adjacent needles. Each larva then mines from 6 to 10 needles and secures them to the twig with silk. Full-grown larvae, about 9 mm long, pupate in a silken cocoon in the soil litter, or occasionally on the tree in May or June. The

pupa A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...

e become moths in four weeks and the females lay eggs, usually singly, occasionally in clusters, on needles produced in the previous year. The eggs soon hatch, and the larvae feed in needles during summer and fall, and hibernate in the mined needles. 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 9–11 mm. The head is pale brownish-ochreous, the face whitish. The forewings have a gently arched costa. The ground colour is lighter or darker fuscous, whitish-sprinkled. The costa is strigulated with dark fuscous and white . The edge of the basal patch is obtusely angulated below middle. The central fascia has a posterior median projection, and there is transverse streak before apex. These markings are dark fuscous. The hindwings are rather dark fuscous. The larva is brown ; head and plate of 2 black Adults are on wing from June to August. The larvae feed on '' Picea abies'', ''

Picea excelsa ''Picea abies'', the Norway spruce or European spruce, is a species of spruce native to Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. It has branchlets that typically hang downwards, and the largest cones of any spruce, 9–17 cm long. It is very closel ...

'', '' Picea pungens'' and '' Picea sitchensis''. They mine the needles of the host plant.Emmet, A. M. (1978). The larval feeding of Epinotia nanana (Treitschke)(Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) pruces ''Entomologist's Gazette''.

References

External links

Eurasian Tortricidae
Olethreutinae Moths of Europe Moths of Asia Moths described in 1835 {{Olethreutinae-stub