''Stenoptilodes antirrhina'', the snapdragon plume moth, 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

Pterophoridae The Pterophoridae or plume moths are a family of Lepidoptera with unusually modified wings. Though they belong to the Apoditrysia like the larger moths and the butterflies, unlike these they are tiny and were formerly included among the assemblag ...

. It is known from

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in the United States, but also from greenhouses in the south-eastern U.S. that have received cuttings of snapdragon from California. 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 15–25 mm. The larvae feed on ''

Antirrhinum ''Antirrhinum'' is a genus of plants commonly known as dragon flowers, snapdragons and dog flower because of the flowers' fancied resemblance to the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed. They are native to r ...

'' species (including ''

Antirrhinum majus ''Antirrhinum majus'', the common snapdragon (often - especially in horticulture - simply "snapdragon"), is a species of flowering plant belonging to the genus ''Antirrhinum''. The plant was placed in the family Plantaginaceae following a revis ...

''), as well as ''Pelargonium'' x ''hortorum''. Young larvae

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

the leaves and later burrow into the stem, petioles,

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 ...

s or seed pods. The development to a full-grown larva takes three to five weeks. The species overwinters as an adult.

References

External links

Image showing damage
antirrhina Moths described in 1940 Endemic fauna of the United States Insects of North America {{Pterophoridae-stub