''Grapholita compositella'', the clover seed moth, is a
moth of the family
Tortricidae. It is found from
Europe to
Asia Minor,
Mongolia,
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 ...
and eastern
Russia. It is also present in
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 ...
.
The
wingspan is 8–10 mm. The face and palpi are white. The forewings are dark fuscous. The costa has eight long white strigulae, several ending in leaden-metallic marks.There is a slightly curved broad quadrate whitish median dorsal blotch, with three parallel blackish lines, surmounted by a leaden-metallic mark. The ocellus is represented by a leaden - metallic transverse mark. The hindwings in the male are white, the apex broadly fuscous ; in the femalethey are dark fuscous, lighter basally.
[Meyrick, E., 1895 ''A Handbook of British Lepidoptera'' MacMillan, Londo]
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Keys and description
There are two generations per year, with adults on wing in May and June and again in August. Males fly during the day, while females fly towards sunset.
The larvae feed on ''
Trifolium
Clover or trefoil are common names for plants of the genus ''Trifolium'' (from Latin ''tres'' 'three' + ''folium'' 'leaf'), consisting of about 300 species of flowering plants in the legume or pea family Fabaceae originating in Europe. The genus h ...
'' species, including ''
Trifolium pratense'' and ''
Trifolium repens''. They have also been recorded on ''
Glycine max'', ''
Medicago sativa'', ''
Melilotus'', ''
Lotus corniculatus'' and other
species. The larvae of the first generation feed in the stems, tunnelling upwards from the base. Second generation larvae usually feed in spun terminal leaves and flowerheads, and sometimes in the pods. Pupation takes place in a whitish silken cocoon amongst litter on the ground.
References
External links
UKmothsEurasian Tortricidae
Grapholitini
Moths of Europe
Moths of Asia
Moths of North America
{{Olethreutinae-stub