Aphomia zelleri

• Subfamily: Galleriinae, Tirathabini
• Wingspan: 19-37 mm
• Flight period: Jun - Aug
• Spread: Common
• Host plants: Brachythecium albicans

Information

The Aphomia zelleri is a moth of the Pyralidae family, with a wingspan of 19-37 mm.
It is found in most of Europe, with the exception of Ireland, Portugal, where its presence is uncertain, and Iceland. *
It is also known in central asia. ***
In Italy it is absent from the islands. *

The Aphomia zelleri is a variable-looking moth, generally the base color of the front wings varies from ocher to brown, with two brown or black stigmata in the median area.
The front wing may sometimes have a slightly different colored band, which starts from the costa and divides the wing transversely in two. The rib is usually darker in color than the background color. A series of dark spots, more or less evident and parallel margin is visible in the post discal region. A second set of smaller dots are visible along the fringed edge.

The hind wings are white sometimes sprinkled with ocher, translucent, also fringed. Head, thorax and abdomen are in the background color of the front wings with a moderate down.

Common moth but is often localizated in sandy coastal habitats. The adults are visible from June to August, they are hidden during the day in the middle of the vegetation, becoming active at night The female can make short flights; the males, much smaller than the females, do little more than flap their wings and often move "running" on the sand. ****

The Aphomia zelleri overwinters in the larval stage and pupation takes place inside the silk tube just below the surface of the soil. The larvae are dark brown/brown in color with a reddish brown head, ** they live in a vertical silk tube that extends approximately 100mm into the sand and from which they feed. *****
The pupa is ocher in color with brown shades, it has a flattened cream, as if it had been truncated.

The larvae feed on Brachythecium albicans a moss that grows on the dunes.


* Lepidoptera mundi https://lepidoptera.eu/ - Fauna Europea https://fauna-eu.org/
** Bestimmungshilfe für die in Europa nachgewiesenen Schmetterlingsarten - http://lepiforum.de/ -
*** Nuss, M.; et al. (2003–2011). "GlobIZ search". Global Information System on Pyraloidea.
**** https://ukmoths.org.uk
***** Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Belgium - https://projects.biodiversity.be/