''Mnesictena pantheropa'' 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 Crambidae. It was described by Edward Meyrick in 1884. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, where it has been recorded from the

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...

. 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 25–26 mm. The forewings are orange, variably mixed with reddish-fuscous or dark fuscous, especially on the veins and some specimens are wholly suffused with fuscous. The extreme costal edge is sometimes whitish in the middle. The markings are reddish-brown, mixed or suffused with dark grey and there is a suffusion along the basal part of the costa, sometimes extending basally to the dorsum. The first line is irregularly curved and the second denticulate, forming a strong subquadrate loop inwards below the middle, the space between them wholly suffused with dark except along the costa and on a band preceding the upper half of the second line. Sometimes, there is a sharply defined irregular transverse or rhomboidal clear white discal spot at the middle. There is a moderate terminal fascia, suffusedly projecting inwards opposite the loop of the second line. The hindwings are whitish-yellowish, becoming whitish towards the costa. The dorsal area is suffused with grey and there are two dark grey discal dots very obliquely placed. Sometimes, there is a grey postmedian line. The terminal fascia is suffused dark grey, sometimes very narrow or obsolete except at the apex and there is a terminal series of dark grey dots.

References

External links

Image of ''U. pantheropa''.
pantheropa Moths described in 1884 Moths of New Zealand Endemic fauna of New Zealand Taxa named by Edward Meyrick Endemic moths of New Zealand {{Spilomelinae-stub