Grammodes stolida

• Subfamily: Erebinae, Ophiusini
• Wingspan: 30-36 mm
• Flight period: Apr - Oct
• Spread: Common
• Host plants: Polyphagous

Information

The Grammodes stolida is a moth of the Erebidae family, Erebinae subfamily, with a wingspan of 30-36 mm.
Visible in most of Europe, with the exception of the Benelux of Norway and Latvia. In Italy it is also present in the islands. *
It is widespread in a large part of Asia, Africa and Australia.

The front wings of the Grammodes stolida have the basal two thirds of a black brown color, with a basal band, costa stripe and stigma shaded in gray. They are crossed in half by a pale oblique ocher band from the subcostal region and widened downwards, with the outer half yellowish.
They are limited externally by a biconcave ocher band, narrower below, followed under vein 6 by a broad brown band, on the outer edge of which there are three or four irregular black patches, and above and beyond it a black spot, strongly angled outward on the sixth grain, these black marks form the inner border of a diffuse pale submarginal line.
The terminal area is shaded in brown, with a short apical black stripe and a diffuse dark shade below the center. The fringes are gray with a white base, globally whitish round apex.

The hind wings are brown in color tinged with olive green, they become blackish towards the edge; a white band is visible from the rib to one third at the anal angle, as a round white submarginal spot in the submedian fold. The fringes are white, but gray between veins 2 and 4. **

Polyvoltine in southern Europe the adult is visible from February to October, in the hot season they tend to migrate northwards reaching countries such as Denmark and Finland. The larvae is reddish yellow, paler on the back and along the spiracles, marked by thin longitudinal black stripes.

The larvae feed on various species of Paliurus (marruca), Rubus (bramble), Tribulus (tribulus), Coriaria and Quercus sp. (Oak tree).


* Lepidoptera mundi https://lepidoptera.eu/ - Fauna Europea https://fauna-eu.org/
** Kimber, Ian. "72.088 BF2461 The Geometrician Grammodes stolida (Fabricius, 1775)"