''Helcystogramma craticula'' 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 The Gelechiidae are a family of moths commonly referred to as twirler moths or gelechiid moths. They are the namesake family of the huge and little-studied superfamily Gelechioidea, and the family's taxonomy has been subject to considerable dis ...

. It was described by

Edward Meyrick Edward Meyrick (25 November 1854, in Ramsbury – 31 March 1938, at Thornhanger, Marlborough) was an English schoolmaster and amateur entomologist. He was an expert on microlepidoptera and some consider him one of the founders of modern micr ...

in 1921. It is found in

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

. 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 about 10 mm. The forewings are ochreous whitish irregularly streaked longitudinally with brown suffusion and dark fuscous sprinkles, and with a stronger blackish streak along the fold. There are short very oblique dark fuscous streaks from the costa at the base and before and beyond one-fourth. The plical stigma is represented by a segment of blackish, the plical streak cut off by white marks, the discal stigmata by a dark fuscous streak with the anterior extremity cut off by white, and posterior nearly encircled by a white ring. There is a fine whitish very oblique striga from the costa at three-fourths and some minute white dots round the posterior part of the costa and termen. The termen is blackish between these. The hindwings are light slaty grey.

References

Endemic fauna of Mozambique Moths described in 1921

craticula ''Craticula'' is a genus of diatom that lies on or in the top layers of sediments in the freshwater to brackish water environments it inhabits. In addition to frustule morphology the genus differs from closely related species by its sexual re ...

Moths of Africa {{Helcystogramma-stub