''Spodoptera latifascia'', commonly known as the lateral-lined armyworm, garden armyworm, or velvet armyworm, 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 found from

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and the

Antilles The Antilles (; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy; es, Antillas; french: Antilles; nl, Antillen; ht, Antiy; pap, Antias; Jamaican Patois: ''Antiliiz'') is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mex ...

into North America (from

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

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 o ...

is about 42 mm.

Phenology

Adults are on wing from March to October depending on the location.

Geography

Type Locality:

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

Taxonomy

Walker (1856) originally described ''latifascia'', placing it in the genus ''Prodenia''. Basionym: ''Prodenia latifascia'' Walker, 1856. Pogue (2002) revived '' S. cosmioides'' (Walker, 1858), as a valid species (though mis-spelled as ''S. cosmiodes''), from synonymy of ''S. latifascia''.

References

External links

Bug Guide
latifascia Moths of North America Moths of the Caribbean Moths of Central America Moths of South America Moths of Cuba Lepidoptera of Brazil Lepidoptera of Jamaica Moths described in 1856 {{Noctuinae-stub