Perittia carlinella
Encyclopedia
Perittia carlinella is a moth
of the family
Elachistidae
. It is found on the Canary Islands
and Madeira
.
The wingspan
is 10-11 mm. The forewings are white, dusted with pale greyish brown scales. The hindwings are grey.
The larvae feed on Carlina salicifolia. They mine
the leaves of their host plant. The mine starts as an upper-surface, slightly contorted corridor. Later, it widens into an elliptic blotch. Pupation takes place in the blotch. Larvae can be found from March to April.
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...
of the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Elachistidae
Elachistidae
| image = Elachista rufocinerea 2.jpg| image_width = 240px| image_caption = Adult Elachista rufocinerea,demonstrating its tiny size versus an aphid and a spider mite | regnum = Animalia| phylum = Arthropoda| classis = Insecta...
. It is found on the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
and Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
.
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 10-11 mm. The forewings are white, dusted with pale greyish brown scales. The hindwings are grey.
The larvae feed on Carlina salicifolia. They mine
Leaf miner
Leaf miner is a term used to describe the larvae of many different species of insect which live in and eat the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths , sawflies and flies , though some beetles and wasps also exhibit this behavior.Like Woodboring beetles, leaf...
the leaves of their host plant. The mine starts as an upper-surface, slightly contorted corridor. Later, it widens into an elliptic blotch. Pupation takes place in the blotch. Larvae can be found from March to April.