Lithacodia uncula

Silver hook
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Noctuidae
Genus: Lithacodia
Species: L. uncula
Binomial name
Lithacodia uncula
(Clerck, 1759)
Synonyms
  • Deltote uncula (Clerck, 1759)
  • Phalaena uncula
  • Phalaena singularis
  • Noctua unca
  • Eustrotia uncula

Lithacodia uncula, the silver hook, is a species of moth of the family Noctuidae. It is found in the Palearctic ecozone.

Distribution

Lithacodia uncula has a vast distribution area ranging from the French western Pyrenees to Japan. In the north it extends to south and central England, Ireland, Scandinavia in the areas around the Baltic Sea, in Finland and northern Russia. Largely missing in the Mediterranean with the exception of two smaller occurrences on the French Mediterranean coast and in Tuscany, as well as on the northern Adriatic coast (in northern Italy, Slovenia and Croatia). In south-eastern Europe the distribution area stretches far to the south to northern Albania and northern Greece. From there it runs east (Russian Far East, northern China, Japan, Korea). Also in south Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Crimea and southern Russia, Central Asia and Siberia.

Description

The wingspan is 20–22 mm. Wings short and broad. Forewing olive brown, darker in disc; a broad flesh coloured streak along costa and another on inner margin; the orbicular and reniform stigmata flesh coloured, whiter-edged, confluent with the costal streak; some pale lines before termen, straight and parallel, the innermost white; hindwing paler; the dark-suffused examples are named obscurior Spul. [1]


Biology

The moth flies from May to September depending on the location.

Larva green with the dorsal line darker; the subdorsal lines whitish; the spiracular pale yellow. The larvae feed on various grasses and Carex species.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Seitz, A. Ed., 1914 Die Großschmetterlinge der Erde, Verlag Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart Band 3: Abt. 1, Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen eulenartigen Nachtfalter, 1914
  2. ↑ "Robinson, G. S., P. R. Ackery, I. J. Kitching, G. W. Beccaloni & L. M. Hernández, 2010. HOSTS - A Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants. Natural History Museum, London.".


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