The Brighton wainscot (''Oria musculosa'') 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 ...

. It is found in mainland

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, north

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and 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 ...

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

, with a separated population in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. It is nationally scarce in Britain where it may be confined to

Salisbury Plain Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...

, and was pronounced extinct as a resident species by 2013.

Technical description and variation

''O. musculosa'' Hbn. (= ''nervosa'' Stph., ''flava'' Frr., ''frumentalis'' Lindem., ''flavescens'' Hmps.) (48 f). Forewing whitish ochreous suffused with yellowish, the pale ground colour showing as streaks along the folds and an oblique streak from apex to end of cell, where the reniform is marked by a pale blotch with a grey spot at its lower end: veins towards termen grey-tinged; hindwing whitish, washed with grey, the veins darker; ''laeta'' Alph. is a small, pale, yellowish form from Central Asia. Larva pale greenish, with four dark lines at even distances apart, forming spots on the anal segment; head redbrown; thoracic plate yellow; spiracles black. Warren. W. in Seitz, A. Ed., 1914 ''Die Großschmetterlinge der Erde'', Verlag Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart Band 3: Abt. 1, Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen eulenartigen Nachtfalter, 1914 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 28–34 mm.

Biology

The moth flies in July and August. The larvae feed internally from autumn to spring in the stems of cereal crops. Wikisource:The Moths of the British Isles/Chapter 15#302 including

Rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to both wheat (''Triticum'') and barley (genus ''Hordeum''). Rye grain is u ...

and also in '' Calamagrostis epigeios''.

References

External links

Lepiforum.de
Moths described in 1808 Moths of Europe Owlet moths of Africa Moths of the Middle East Moths of Africa Moths of Asia Taxa named by Jacob Hübner {{Noctuidae-stub