''Telphusa calathaea'' 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 Gelechiidae first described by Edward Meyrick in 1913. It is found 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 ...

. 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 15 mm. The forewings are pale brownish, finely whitish sprinkled, with a few scattered blackish scales and with two small confluent black spots on the base of the costa, the costal edge is blackish to the antemedian patch. There are irregular sub-triangular blackish patches on the costa before and beyond the middle, the first reaching to beyond the fold, the second not reaching halfway across the wing. There is a raised transverse mark of a few blackish scales representing the second discal stigma and the apical area is suffused with grey, mixed with blackish scales, intersected by an obscure pale curved shade from three-fourths of the costa to the tornus. The hindwings are grey, paler and thinly scaled towards the base.

References

Endemic moths of South Africa Moths described in 1913 Telphusa Taxa named by Edward Meyrick {{Litini-stub