Scythropia crataegella
Encyclopedia
- "Phalaenea crataegella" redirects here. The species misidentified thus by Hübner in 1796 is Eudonia lacustrataEudonia lacustrataEudonia lacustrata is a species of moth of the family Crambidae. It is found in Europe, North-West Africa, Asia from Turkey to Siberia and the Western part of China. The subspecies E. lacustrata persica is found in Iran and Armenia....
. - "Tinea cornella" redirects here. This name has been frequently misapplied to the Apple Blossom Tineid (Argyresthia curvella).
The Hawthorn Moth (Scythropia crataegella) is a 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 ermine moth
Ermine moth
The family Yponomeutidae are known as the ermine moths, with several hundred species, most of them in the tropics. The larvae tend to form communal webs, and some are minor pests in agriculture, forestry, and horticulture. Some of the adults are very attractive...
(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...
Yponomeutidae) from western Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
. It is usually placed in a small subfamily Scythropiinae, which is sometimes included in the Yponomeutinae
Yponomeutinae
Yponomeutinae is a subfamily of "micromoths" in the lepidopteran in the family Yponomeutidae . As their scientific name implies, this is the subfamily containing the type genus of the ermine moths, Yponomeuta....
.
Described as Phalaena crataegella by Linnaeus
Carolus Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...
in 1767, it was made the type species
Type species
In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...
of Scythropia, the only Scythropiinae genus currently recognized, by Jacob Hübner
Jacob Hübner
Jacob Hübner was a German entomologist. He was the author of Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge , a founding work of entomology.-Scientific career:...
in the 1820s. Initially (in 1796), Hübner had misidentified the grass moth Eudonia lacustrata
Eudonia lacustrata
Eudonia lacustrata is a species of moth of the family Crambidae. It is found in Europe, North-West Africa, Asia from Turkey to Siberia and the Western part of China. The subspecies E. lacustrata persica is found in Iran and Armenia....
– much larger and only distantly related, but somewhat similar in color and pattern – as Linnaeus' Phalaena crataegella. Similarly, a junior synonym of this species, Tinea cornella, has frequently been misapplied – and sometimes still is even today – to the fairly closely related Apple Blossom Tineid (Argyresthia curvella).
Description and ecology
S. crataegella is a small mothMoth
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...
is widespread almost all over 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...
; it is absent from 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...
north of Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, and has also not been recorded yet on 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...
and 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...
(where it is probably genuinely absent), in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
(where it may be absent), and in Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
(where it probably occurs but has not been found yet, as its range includes the surrounding countries). It is quite common throughout its range. The nocturnal adults are attracted to light sources; on Great Britain they are only commonly seen in July, but elsewhere they may be found from late May to September and have two generation
Generation
Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....
s per year.
The wingspan of adults is 11–15 mm. As usual for Yponomeutidae, the forewings have a bold black-and-white pattern: two thick but irregular black bands divide the white forewings into roughly equal inner, middle and outer parts, and the white between the bands has numerous small black spots. The hindwings are dusky greyish-brown and unadorned. The body is whitish. The 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...
larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e feed in large groups from the safety of a silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
en web they produce together; young larvae are leaf miner
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...
s. The mainstay food is leaves of Crataegus
Crataegus
Crataegus , commonly called hawthorn or thornapple, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the rose family, Rosaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in Europe, Asia and North America. The name hawthorn was originally applied to the species native to northern Europe,...
(hawthorn), hence the species' name. But they have also been recorded from other Spiraeoideae
Spiraeoideae
The subfamily Spiraeoideae was traditionally a subfamily of flowering plants within family Rosaceae. The taxonomy of this subfamily has changed several times in the last century as more detailed studies have been carried out...
, e.g. Blackthorn
Blackthorn
Prunus spinosa is a species of Prunus native to Europe, western Asia, and locally in northwest Africa. It is also locally naturalised in New Zealand and eastern North America....
(Prunus spinosa) and other Prunus
Prunus
Prunus is a genus of trees and shrubs, which includes the plums, cherries, peaches, apricots and almonds. There are around 430 species spread throughout the northern temperate regions of the globe. Many members of the genus are widely cultivated for fruit and ornament.-Botany:Members of the genus...
species, Cotoneaster
Cotoneaster
Cotoneaster is a genus of woody plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, native to the Palaearctic region , with a strong concentration of diversity in the genus in the mountains of southwestern China and the Himalayas...
, as well as Malus sylvestris
Malus sylvestris
Malus sylvestris, the European wild apple, is a species of Malus , native to Europe from as far south as Spain, Italy and Greece to as far north as Scandinavia and Russia. Its scientific name means "forest apple", and the truly wild tree has thorns.In the past, M. sylvestris was thought to be an...
and Pyrus (pear).