Eteobalea serratella is a moth

Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

 in the Cosmopterigidae

Cosmopterigidae

Cosmopterigidae is a family of insects in the Lepidoptera order. These are small moths with narrow wings whose tiny larvae feed internally on the leaves, seeds, stems, etc of their host plants. There are about 1,500 described species...

 family. It is found in most of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, except the Benelux

Benelux

The Benelux is an economic union in Western Europe comprising three neighbouring countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These countries are located in northwestern Europe between France and Germany...

, Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

, Fennoscandia

Fennoscandia

Fennoscandia and Fenno-Scandinavia are geographic and geological terms used to describe the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Kola Peninsula, Karelia and Finland...

 and the Baltic States

Baltic states

The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...

.. It was approved for release in the United States in 1995 for the biological control of toadflax. A few field releases have been made in western Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the western United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, but no established populations have been confirmed.

The wingspan

Wingspan

The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

 is 16-18 mm. Adults are dark brown with white and copper spots. There is one generation per year.

The larvae feed on Linaria vulgaris

Linaria vulgaris

Linaria vulgaris is a species of toadflax , native to most of Europe and northern Asia, from the United Kingdom south to Spain in the west, and east to eastern Siberia and western China...

. They are off-white with brown heads. They develop through five instars and reach a length of up to 12 mm. First instar larvae bore into the root crown where they feed on tissue inside tunnels they carve and line with silk. Mature larvae overwinter in roots and then pupate in spring inside coccoons within the root crown.