Hemistola chrysoprasaria

Hemistola chrysoprasaria
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Geometridae
Genus: Hemistola
Species: H. chrysoprasaria
Binomial name
Hemistola chrysoprasaria
(Esper, 1794)

The Small Emerald (Hemistola chrysoprasaria) is a moth of the family Geometridae. The species can be found in all Europe including the Iberian peninsula and Russia East to the Ural mountains, North Africa, Asia Minor, Transcaucasia and the mountains of Eastern Asia (Russian Far East, Siberia), (Amur, Ussuri) and China Tian Shan (as form lissas)

Description

The wingspan is 28–32 mm. Both fore and hindwings are light-green coloured, but fade but with increasing life span to yellow-green to yellow-white.There is an outer and a fainter inner, slightly curved and continuous, white cross line on the front wings. The inner (antemedian) is strongly curved and usually with two small, slight teeth directed distad, the outer (postmedian) is nearly parallel with distal margin, not dentate.The outer line continues on the hind wing.There is no discal stain. The antennae of the males are slightly combed, those of females short ciliate. In Amur and Ussuri the specimens are often large and with the lines rather widely separated.lissas diifers in the shape of the hindwing, which is rounded instead of elbowed[1]

Biology

The moths fly in one generation from June to August. .

The larva feed on Clematis vitalba.

Habitats include edges of woods, hedges areas as well as gardens and parks.It prefers warm slopes.

Subspecies

Notes

  1. ^ The flight season refers to the British Isles. This may vary in other parts of the range.

References

  1. Prout , L.B. 1912–16. Geometridae. In A. Seitz (ed.) The Macrolepidoptera of the World. The Palaearctic Geometridae, 4. 479 pp. Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart.

External links

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