''Paidia minoica'' 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

Erebidae The Erebidae are a family of moths in the superfamily Noctuoidea. The family is among the largest families of moths by species count and contains a wide variety of well-known macromoth groups. The family includes the underwings ('' Catocala'') ...

. It was described by Josef J. de Freina in 2006. It is found on

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

. The habitat consists of forest fringes, wide forest clearings and fringes of shrubland on rocky soils at altitudes ranging from the lowlands to 1,400 meters above sea-level. 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 about 27 mm. Adults are on wing from May to June and again in October in the lowlands. At higher elevations, adults are on wing from late July to late September.

Etymology

The species is named from the mythological King

Minos In Greek mythology, Minos (; grc-gre, Μίνως, ) was a King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus's creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten ...

., 2006
"''Paidia minoica'' sp. n. von Kreta, eine neue Paidia für Europa. Beschreibung und Angaben zur Phänologie der Art (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae, Lithosiinae)"
(PDF) ''Mitteilungen der Münchner Entomologischen Gesellschaft'' 96: 21-27.

References

Nudariina Moths described in 2006 {{Nudariina-stub