''Morophaga choragella'' 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

Tineidae Tineidae is a family of moths in the order Lepidoptera described by Pierre André Latreille in 1810. Collectively, they are known as fungus moths or tineid moths. The family contains considerably more than 3,000 species in more than 300 genera. ...

. It is found in Europe.

Description

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 18–32 mm. It is a brown-speckled moths. The antennae are wire-shaped and a little over half as long as the forewings. The head is covered with short, grey-brown, hair-like scales. The thorax is brown with lighter sides. The forewings are rounded, the base color is yellow-brown with darker markings, also some small, white spots. In the middle of the wing there is a comma-shaped, darker spot from the back edge, this is edged with white. The forewing has fringes of dark grey-brown with a narrow, light middle stripe and four narrow, white fields. The hind wing is grey, with short hair fringes that are light grey with a darker band in the middle. The larva is dirty yellowish white with a dark brown head.

Biology

The moth flies from May to September. The larvae feed on

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is t ...

s, particularly ''

Piptoporus betulinus ''Fomitopsis betulina'' (previously ''Piptoporus betulinus''), commonly known as the birch polypore, birch bracket, or razor strop, is a common bracket fungus and, as the name suggests, grows almost exclusively on birch trees. The brackets burs ...

'' and ''

Ganoderma applanatum ''Ganoderma applanatum'' (the artist's bracket, artist's conk, artist's fungus or bear bread) is a bracket fungus with a cosmopolitan distribution. Description This fungus is parasitic and saprophytic, and grows as a mycelium within the wood o ...

'', and dead wood.

References

Content in this edit is translated from the existing Norwegian Wikipedia article at :no:Morophaga choragella; see its history for attribution.

External links

waarneming.nl

Morophaga choragella on UKmoths
Tineidae Moths of Japan Moths of Europe Moths of Asia Moths described in 1775 {{Tineidae-stub