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The Dot Moth (Melanchra persicariae) is a moth
Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the Order Lepidoptera. The differences between butterflies and moths are more than just taxonomy....
 of the family Noctuidae
Noctuidae

The Noctuidae or Owlet moths are a family of robustly-built moths that includes more than 35,000 known species out of possibly 100,000 total, in more than 4,200 genera....
. It is found throughout Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 apart from the south-east.

This is a very distinctive species with very dark brown, almost black, forewings marked with a large white stigma
Glossary of Lepidopteran terms

This glossary describes the terms used in the formal descriptions of lepidopteran species.Like all insects, adult butterflies have three distinctive segments to their bodies, the head, thorax and abdomen....
 from which the species gets its common name. The hindwings are grey with a dark band at the termen
Glossary of Lepidopteran terms

This glossary describes the terms used in the formal descriptions of lepidopteran species.Like all insects, adult butterflies have three distinctive segments to their bodies, the head, thorax and abdomen....
. The wingspan
Wingspan

The wingspan of an fixed-wing aircraft or a bird, is the distance from the left wingtip to the right wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about 60 m ....
 is 38-50 mm. It flies at night in July and August and is attracted to light, sugar and flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s.

The larva
Larva

A larva is a young form of animal with indirect developmental biology, going through or undergoing metamorphosis .The larva can look completely different from the adult form, for example, a caterpillar differs from a butterfly....
 is rather variable in colour, being green, brown or even purplish.






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Encyclopedia


The Dot Moth (Melanchra persicariae) is a moth
Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the Order Lepidoptera. The differences between butterflies and moths are more than just taxonomy....
 of the family Noctuidae
Noctuidae

The Noctuidae or Owlet moths are a family of robustly-built moths that includes more than 35,000 known species out of possibly 100,000 total, in more than 4,200 genera....
. It is found throughout Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 apart from the south-east.

This is a very distinctive species with very dark brown, almost black, forewings marked with a large white stigma
Glossary of Lepidopteran terms

This glossary describes the terms used in the formal descriptions of lepidopteran species.Like all insects, adult butterflies have three distinctive segments to their bodies, the head, thorax and abdomen....
 from which the species gets its common name. The hindwings are grey with a dark band at the termen
Glossary of Lepidopteran terms

This glossary describes the terms used in the formal descriptions of lepidopteran species.Like all insects, adult butterflies have three distinctive segments to their bodies, the head, thorax and abdomen....
. The wingspan
Wingspan

The wingspan of an fixed-wing aircraft or a bird, is the distance from the left wingtip to the right wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about 60 m ....
 is 38-50 mm. It flies at night in July and August and is attracted to light, sugar and flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s.

The larva
Larva

A larva is a young form of animal with indirect developmental biology, going through or undergoing metamorphosis .The larva can look completely different from the adult form, for example, a caterpillar differs from a butterfly....
 is rather variable in colour, being green, brown or even purplish. It is marked with lighter diagonal markings and has a distinctive hump at the rear end. It is polyphagous, feeding on a wide variety of plant
Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
s (see list below). The species overwinters as a pupa
Pupa

A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The pupal stage is found only in Holometabolism insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, going through four life stages; embryo, larva, pupa and imago....
.

  1. The flight season refers to the British Isles
    British Isles

    The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include Great Britain and Ireland, and numerous smaller islands....
    . This may vary in other parts of the range.


Recorded food plants


  • Aconitum
    Aconitum

    Aconitum , known as aconite, monkshood, wolfsbane, leopard's bane, women's bane, Devil's helmet or blue rocket, is a genus of flowering plant belonging to the buttercup family ....
  • Actaea
    Actaea

    Actaea is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Ranunculaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.The genus is closely related to Cimicifuga and Souliea, and many botanists include those genera within Actaea based on combined evidence from DNA sequence data, similarity in biochemical con...
  • Aegopodium - Ground-elder
    Ground-elder

    The ground-elder is in the carrot family that grows in shady places. It is sometimes also cited as "ground elder", though this format invites confusion by suggesting it is a species of Elderberry , an unrelated genus....
  • Alnus - Grey Alder
    Grey Alder

    Alnus incana is a species of alder with a wide range across the cooler parts of the Northern Hemisphere. It is a small to medium size tree 15-20 m tall with smooth grey bark even in old age, its life span being a maximum of 60-100 years....
  • Aquilegia - Columbine
    Aquilegia

    Aquilegia is a genus of about 60-70 species of columbines, herbaceous perennial plants that are found in meadows, woodlands, and at higher altitudes throughout the Northern Hemisphere....
  • Betula - Silver Birch
    Silver Birch

    Betula pendula, is a widespread European birch, though in southern Europe it is only found at higher altitudes. Its range extends into southwest Asia in the mountains of northern Turkey and the Caucasus....
  • Calluna - Heather
  • Campanula
    Campanula

    Campanula is one of several genus of in the family Campanulaceae with the common name bellflower. It takes its name from their bell-shaped flowers?campanula is Latin for "little bell"....
  • Cirsium - Creeping Thistle
    Cirsium arvense

    Cirsium arvense is a species of Cirsium, native throughout Europe and northern Asia, and widely introduced species elsewhere. The standard English name in its native area is Creeping Thistle....
  • Delphinium
    Delphinium

    Delphinium is a genus of about 250 species of annual, biennial or perennial flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native throughout the Northern Hemisphere and also on the high mountains of tropical Africa....
  • Hieracium - Hawkweed
    Hawkweed

    Hawkweed refers to any species in the very large genus Hieracium and its segregate genus Pilosella, in the sunflower family .They are common perennial plant, occurring worldwide ....
  • Impatiens
    Impatiens

    Impatiens is a genus of about 850–1,000 species of flowering plants, widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and tropics....
     - Touch-me-not Balsam
  • Larix - Larch
    Larch

    Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. They are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the far north, and high on mountains further south....
  • Lupinus - Lupin
    Lupin

    Lupin, often spelled lupine in North America, is the common name for members of the genus Lupinus in the legume family . The genus comprises between 200-600 species, with major centers of diversity in South America and western North America - ) and - in the Mediterranean region and Africa....
  • Lysimachia
    Lysimachia

    Lysimachia is a genus of flowering plants. It is traditionally Scientific classification in the family Primulaceae but should, according to Molecular phylogeny study, be placed to the family Myrsinaceae ....
     - Yellow Loosestrife
  • Petunia
    Petunia

    Petunia is a trumpet shaped, widely-cultivated genus of flowering plants of South American origin, in the family Solanaceae. The popular flower got its name from French, which took the word petun 'tobacco' from a Tupi-Guarani language....
  • Phlox
    Phlox

    Phlox is a genus of 67 species of Annual plant or perennial plant flowering plants. Some species flower in early Spring while others flower in summer into fall....
  • Polygonum
    Polygonum

    Polygonum is a genus in the buckwheat family Polygonaceae. Common names of polygonum species include knotweed, knotgrass, bistort, tear-thumb, mile-a-minute, and several others....
  • Prunus - Bird Cherry
    Bird cherry

    The bird cherries are a subgenus of the genus Prunus, characterised by having deciduous leaf, flowers 12-30 together on slender racemes produced in late spring well after leaf emergence, and small, sour fruit usually only palatable to birds, hence the name....
  • Pteridium - Bracken
    Bracken

    Brackens are a genus of about ten species of large, coarse ferns, in the family Dennstaedtiaceae, commonly found on moorland. The genus has probably the widest distribution of any fern genus in the world, being found on all continents except Antarctica and in all environments except for hot and cold deserts....
  • Quercus - Holm oak
    Holm Oak

    The Holm Oak , also called Holly Oak or Evergreen Oak, is a large evergreen oak native to the Mediterranean region. It takes its name from wikt:holm, an ancient name for holly....
  • Ribes
    Ribes

    Ribes is a genus of about 150 species of flowering plants, usually treated as the only genus in the family Grossulariaceae. The genus is native throughout the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere....
     - Currant
  • Rubus - Raspberry
    Raspberry

    The raspberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the subgenus Rubus#Scientific classification of the genus Rubus; the name also applies to these plants themselves....
  • Rudbeckia
    Rudbeckia

    Rudbeckia is one of at least four genus within the flowering plant family Asteraceae whose members are commonly known as coneflowers; the others are Echinacea, Dracopis and Ratibida....
  • Salix - Willow
    Willow

    Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere....
  • Sambucus - Elder
    Elderberry

    Sambucus is a genus of between 5 and 30 species of shrubs or small trees, formerly placed in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae, but now shown by genetic evidence to be correctly classified in the moschatel family, Adoxaceae....
  • Solidago - Goldenrod
    Goldenrod

    The goldenrod is a yellow flowering plant in the Family Asteraceae....
  • Sorbus - Rowan
    Rowan

    The rowans or mountain-ashes are plants in the family Rosaceae, in the genus Sorbus, subgenus Sorbus. They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the mountains of western China and the Himalaya, where numerous apomixis microspecies occur....
  • Spinacia - Spinach
    Spinach

    Spinach is a flowering plant in the family of Amaranthaceae. It is native to central and southwestern Asia. It is an annual plant , which grows to a height of up to 30 cm....
  • Tagetes
    Tagetes

    Tagetes is a genus of 52 species of Annual plant and perennial plant herbaceous plants in the daisy family . They are native to the area stretching from the southwestern United States into Mexico and south throughout South America....
  • Tropaeolum - Nasturtium
  • Urtica - Nettle
    Nettle

    Nettle is the common name for between 30-45 species of flowering plants of the genus Urtica in the family Urticaceae, with a cosmopolitan distribution though mainly temperate distribution....
  • Vaccinium - Bilberry
    Bilberry

    Bilberry is a name given to several species of low-growing shrubs in the genus Vaccinium that bears false berrys. The species most often referred to is Vaccinium myrtillus L., otherwise known as the European blueberry....