Acontia lucida

Acontia lucida
Acontia lucida. Dorsal view
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Hexapoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Noctuidae
Genus: Acontia
Species: A. lucida
Binomial name
Acontia lucida
(Hufnagel, 1766)
Synonyms[1]

The Pale Shoulder (Acontia lucida) is a moth of the Noctuidae family.[2]

Distribution and habitat

This species can be found in most of Europe, east to Turkey, Iran and India. It has also been recorded from Algeria. It is a rare migrant to the south coast of Great Britain.[3][4] Pale Shoulder live in grasslands, waste lands, dry meadows, steppes, dunes and roadsides, where the host plants are present.[5]

Description

Acontia lucida. Lateral view

The wingspan of Acontia lucida can reach 26–30 mm. Head, thorax and abdomen are white. The forewings show a greyish white front part and a wide dark brown median band, dark-mottled and marbled, larger in the centre. A white mark is present on the outer edge of the forewings, while a brown mark is close to the apex. Hindwings are whitish-fuscous, with a brown band near the apex. Larvae are green or brown, with transversal whitish bands.[4][5][6]

Biology

The larvae are polyphagous, feeding on various herbaceous plants, mainly on mallow (Malva species), common marshmallow (Althaea officinalis), field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), goosefoots (Chenopodium) and dandelion (Taraxacum). Adults are on wing on sunny days in May and August in two generations.[4] They are attracted to light. This species overwinters as chrysalis below ground.[5] Rarely it is a migrant species.[7]

Mounted specimen

References

External links


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