The minor shoulder-knot (''Brachylomia viminalis'') 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

Noctuidae The Noctuidae, commonly known as owlet moths, cutworms or armyworms, are a family of moths. They are considered the most controversial family in the superfamily Noctuoidea because many of the clades are constantly changing, along with the other f ...

. The species was first described by

Johan Christian Fabricius Johan Christian Fabricius (7 January 1745 – 3 March 1808) was a Danish zoologist, specialising in "Insecta", which at that time included all arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. He was a student of Carl Linnaeus, and is cons ...

in 1776. It is distributed throughout Europe then east 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 ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It also occurs in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. This is a fairly small species with a

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 ...

of 29–34 mm. It usually has pale grey forewings with darker markings towards the base, including the prominent black mark at the root of the wing which gives the species its common name. However this is a variable species and darker forms exist, including examples of industrial melanism which are prevalent in some towns and cities. The characteristic basal markings are not usually apparent on such individuals. The hindwings are pale or dark grey. The species flies at night in July and August and is attracted to light and sugar, as well as various

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

Technical description

Forewing dark or pale grey varied with fuscous; the base diffusely darker; the median shade broadly blackish; lines pale, approximating below middle, where they are conversely marked with black; a short black streak on base of submedian fold; claviform stigma long, black-edged, touching or connected with outer line; orbicular and reniform pale, with black outlines, the reniform sometimes white; submarginal line pale, preceded by a rufous grey shade; hindwing brownish grey; fringe pale, often rufous, like the lateral and anal tufts of abdomen; in ''saliceti'' Bkh. the inner half of wing is dark, limited by the median shade, the outer half much paler; ab. ''stricta'' Esp. is a grey or brown form, with the terminal area only pale, and the costal edge red; a rarer form of which, ab. ''rufescens'' ab. nov. arren has the whole forewing and the underside of both wings suffused with rufous; ''obscura'' Stgr. is a darker common form, more uniformly dark grey, of which ''unicolor'' Tutt, from the north of England, a nearly black form, is an extreme development: ''scripta'' Hbn. the commonest form in the south of England, has the ground colour white or grey white; ab. ''suffusa'' ab nov. arrenis a form with the white forewing suffused with smoky brown obliterating the lines, and leaving only the stigmata with their black outlines visible. Larva whitish green, with all the lines whiter, and the tubercles whitish. 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 ...

feeds on

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist s ...

s between united leaves spinning leaves together in order to feed undisturbed. The species overwinters as an

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

. #''The flight season refers to the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

. This may vary in other parts of the range.''

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *

Chinery, Michael Michael Chinery (born 1938, in London) is an English naturalist. He studied in Cambridge where he graduated in natural sciences and anthropology. He edits '' Cecidology'', the journal of the British Plant Gall Society The British Plant Gall ...

(1986, reprinted 1991). ''Collins Guide to the Insects of Britain and Western Europe''. * Skinner, Bernard (1984). ''

The Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles ''The Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles (Macrolepidoptera)'' by Bernard Skinner is a single volume identification guide to the macromoths of Britain and Ireland published by Viking Books, often referred by moth recorders ...

''.

External links

* * Taxonomy
''Fauna Europaea''''Lepiforum e.V.''
{{Taxonbar , from=Q1812507 Brachylomia Moths described in 1776 Moths of Japan Moths of Europe Moths of Asia Taxa named by Johan Christian Fabricius