Euclidia (Euclidia) glyphica

• Subfamily: Erebinae, Euclidiini
• Wingspan: 25-30 mm
• Flight period: Apr - Aug
• Spread: Common
• Host plants: Fabaceae, Polygonaceae

Information

Euclidia glyphica also called Burnet companion is a moth of the Erebidae family, subfamily Erebinae, with a wingspan of 25-30 mm.
Visible throughout Europe except Iceland (like most of the moths on the site). In Italy it is also present in Sicily, but not in Sardinia. *

The front wings of Euclidia glyphica are light gray in color suffused with walnut or uniform light brown. Dark olive shades are visible. An inner line is clear, oblique and wavy, followed by a brown band; whitish outer lines, vertically wavy, preceded by a brown band, whose inner edge is the midline. The external line is curved outwards and accompanied by clear scales on each side; dark submarginal line, followed by a darker band, which forms a black spot on the costa.

The hind wings are colored in ocher with dark veins with a shaded base and inner margin. A blackish central submarginal strip is visible, toothed externally to the costa; a dark terminal shadow running along the veins. **
The underside of the wing ranges from intense orange to hazelnut with two characteristic darker spots on the front wing.

Quite common species, it frequents woods, pastures, meadows and also the margins of cultivated areas of most of the Palearctic Ecozone. Bivoltine, adults flicker from April to August. The larva is brown / yellowish or brown / reddish with a darker dorsal line; the head is brown / yellowish with two dark streaks. It winters at the pupa stage.

The larvae feed on Trifolium species (especially Trifolium pratense), Medicago sativa, Lotus corniculatus, Vicia cracca, Lathyrus pratensis, and Hippocrepis comosa, *** sometimes on some species of Viola and Rumex.


* Lepidoptera mundi https://lepidoptera.eu/ - Fauna Europea https://fauna-eu.org/
** Seitz, A. Ed., 1914 Die Großschmetterlinge der Erde, Verlag Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart Band 3: Abt. 1, Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen eulenartigen Nachtfalter, 1914
*** Heiko Bellmann, 2003 Der Neue Kosmos Schmetterlingsführer, Schmetterlinge, Raupen und Futterpflanzen, S. 260, Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-440-09330-1