Anacampsis cf. scintillella

• Subfamily: Anacampsinae, Anacampsini
• Wingspan: 12-13 mm
• Flight period: Jun - Aug (data not certain)
• Spread: Common
• Host plants: Cistaceae

Information

The Anacampsis scintillella is a moth of the Gelechiidae family, with a wingspan of 12-13 mm.
It is found in most of Europe, with the exception of Ireland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, much of the Baltic region and Poland. In Italy it is also present in the islands.*
It is also present in North Africa.

The background color of the front wings of the Anacampsis scintillella is dark brown/ dark brown with a lighter wavy line, parallel to the outer margin, sometimes barely mentioned, in the post-discal region. The rear wing is brown in color with more intense dark shades towards the edge, it's strongly fringed.
The head with long curved palps is the same background color as the front wing, as well as the thorax, the abdomen is slightly lighter.

The larvae are yellow / greyish with black dots on each segment, sparse grayish white hairs, black head and prothoracic shield. The pupa is elongated and brown / ocher or brown / reddish in color. **
The larvae were observed from April to early July depending on the latitude.

The larvae feed on various species of Cistus in central and southern Europe, also in southern Europe S. Tainton (1865: 47) specifically reports: "The caterpillar lives on Helianthemum vulgare, where it unites the upper and lower leaves and thus builds a cavity in which it gnaws the leaves in all their thickness. It feeds on in June and reaches its maximum size towards the end of that month or the beginning of July ".

Ezzine et al. (2015) summarize: "The larvae of Anacampsis scintillella are polyphagous. They feed on Helianthemum vulgare, Cistus psilosepalus, C. crispus and C. salvifolius, H. halimifolium and H. lasianthum.


* Lepidoptera mundi https://lepidoptera.eu/ - Fauna Europea https://fauna-eu.org/
** Bestimmungshilfe für die in Europa nachgewiesenen Schmetterlingsarten - http://lepiforum.de/ -