Graellsia isabellae

Graellsia isabellae
Graellsia isabellae, female
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Saturniidae
Genus: Graellsia
Grote, 1896
Species: G. isabellae
Binomial name
Graellsia isabellae
(Graëlls, 1849)
Distribution of G. isabellae in West Europe
Synonyms

Actias isabellae
Saturnia isabellae

The Spanish moon moth (Graellsia isabellae) is a moth of the silkmoth family Saturniidae.

Range

The moth is native to Spain and France.

At the end of April and beginning of May the moth begins to hatch after overwintering in the cocoon. Normally moths from the same line don't copulate, so it is the condition that different lines are in a not too wide range. After copulation the female lays about 100 to 150 eggs on the favoured foodplant, pines. The larva hatch after 1 to 1.5 weeks and begin to eat from the very hard pine needles. It takes about 1.5 month to see the last instar of the caterpillars. In the last instar the caterpillars go down from the tree to pupate under leaves on the ground. In this phase the pupae in the cocoon overwinters until next springtime.

Host plants

This moth primarily eats the needles of pine trees (Pinus). It appears to have difficulty adopting non-native pine species as a host even within the Pinus genus.

Life cycle

Sources

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Graellsia isabellae.
Wikispecies has information related to: Graellsia isabellae
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, August 16, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.