''Hellinsia helianthi'' (sunflower plume moth) 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

Pterophoridae The Pterophoridae or plume moths are a family of Lepidoptera with unusually modified wings. Though they belong to the Apoditrysia like the larger moths and the butterflies, unlike these they are tiny and were formerly included among the assemblag ...

. It is found in North America in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

(including the type location, the

Siskiyou Mountains The Siskiyou Mountains are a coastal subrange of the Klamath Mountains, and located in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon in the United States. They extend in an arc for approximately from east of Crescent City, California, northea ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

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, ...

and

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. 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 21-29.5 mm. The head is brown, but whitish between the antennae. These are whitish with brown dots above. The thorax is concolorous with the forewings and the abdomen is similar above with dark gray brown dorsal dots, forming a broken dorsal line. The forewings are brownish white to tawny with some scattered dark brown scales. There is sometimes a small dot near middle of the cell and a dark dash on the costa over the base of the cleft, but both are often lacking. A short distance before the cleft and slightly toward the inner margin there is a rounded dark brown spot, rather well defined, which may be extended as much as halfway to the costa by an oblique line of dark scales. The fringes are concolorous, those in the cleft with dark areas. The hindwings are gray brown and the fringes are slightly more tawny. The larvae feed on ''

Helianthus ''Helianthus'' () is a genus comprising about 70 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae commonly known as sunflowers. Except for three South American species, the species of ''Helianthus'' are native to ...

'' species.Description of Families of Lepidoptera
/ref>

References

helianthi Moths of North America Fauna of California Fauna of the Western United States Moths described in 1880 {{Oidaematophorini-stub