Rice Moth
Encyclopedia
The Rice Moth is a pyraloid
Pyraloidea
The Pyraloidea are a moth superfamily containing about 16,000 described species worldwide , and probably at least as many more remain to be described. They are generally fairly small moths....

 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...

 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...

 Pyralidae
Pyralidae
The Pyralidae or snout moths are a family of Lepidoptera in the ditrysian superfamily Pyraloidea. In many classifications, the grass moths are included in the Pyralidae as a subfamily, making the combined group one of the largest families in the Lepidoptera...

. It is – as far as is known – the only living species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Corcyra.

This small moth can become a significant pest. Its caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...

s feed on dry plantstuffs such as seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s, including cereals (e.g. rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

). Other recorded foods are flour
Flour
Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...

 and dried fruits.

Synonyms

Other scientific names, now invalid, for the Rice Moth are:
  • Anerastia lineata Legrand, 1965
  • Corcyra translineella Hampson, 1901
  • Melissoblaptes cephalonica Stainton, 1866
  • Melissoblaptes oeconomellus Mann, 1872
  • Tineopsis theobromae Dyar, 1913


When describing his T. theobromae in 1913, Dyar established the genus Tineopsis. He overlooked, however, that this had already been proposed by Cajetan Freiherr von Felder
Cajetan Freiherr von Felder
Baron Cajetan von Felder, German: Cajetan Freiherr von Felder was an Austrian jurist, politician, and entomologist...

 for a (presumed) arctiid moth in 1861. Nonwithstanding that Felder's species
Tineopsis
Tineopsis is a genus of moth in the family Arctiidae.-References:*...

 is somewhat dubious and has not been identified in recent lists, Dyar's Tineopsis is a junior homonym and thus invalid in any case.
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