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Spilonota ocellana

Bud moth

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Spilonota ocellana, the bud moth, is a moth of the family Tortricidae. It is found in the Palearctic realm, from North Africa and Europe to Iran, eastern Russia, China (Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hubei, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai), Korea, and Japan. It is also present on Madeira and in North America.

The wingspan is 12-17 mm. The forewings are whitish, sometimes partly suffused with grey, more or less strigulated with dark fuscous. The basal patch is dark grey, sometimes blackish-mixed, edge somewhat angulated and the central fascia form a dark grey sometimes indistinct costal suffusion, and there is a black-edged triangular praetornal spot. The ocellus is edged with leaden- metallic, enclosing several sometimes confluent black dashes. The cilia are dark grey. The hindwings are rather dark grey. The larva is pinkish-brown; head and plate of 2 dark fuscous: on blackthorn, larch, alder, etc.; May. The larch -feeding form distinguished as lariciana is usually somewhat smaller and darker.

The moth flies from May to October depending on the location. There is one generation per year.

The larvae feed on various deciduous trees and shrubs including Quercus, Betula, Sorbus and Vaccinium.

Museum specimen
Museum specimen
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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Spilonota ocellana, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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