Chrysocrambus cassentiniellus

• Subfamily: Crambinae
• Wingspan: 20-25 mm
• Flight period: May - Aug
• Spread: Common
• Host plants: Poaceae

Information

The Chrysocrambus cassentiniellus is a moth of the Crambidae family, subfamily Crambinae, with a wingspan of 20-27 mm.
In Europe it is visible in the UK, Spain, France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Romania and Ukraine. In Italy there are also islands. *
It is also visible in Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and Turkmenistan.

The front wing has a cream background color, with a series of not well-defined brownish longitudinal lines. Two brown bands cross the wing , with a curvilinear course in the discal and post discal region. The edge has a thin line that varies from yellow-orange to brown and may have small black spots in correspondence with the veins of the wing, the fringes are metallic silver. The hind wings are dark brown, opaque, also fringed.
Both sexes have long labial palps with color ranging from yellow-orange to brown; the head and thorax have the same color as the palps, the abdomen is brown.

It is a univoltine species and the adults are visible in flight from June to the end of August, rarely during the day. This moth prefers calcareous soils where it can be particularly abundant.
A very similar species to Crysocrambus cassentiniellus is Crysocrambus craterellus . The two species can be differentiated, in addition to the examination of the genitals, also for two morphological characters highlighted in the last photo. In Crysocrambus cassentiniellus the median line has a less curved course than in Chrysocramboides craterellus and the apex lacks the double suffused brown line, present instead in the Chrysocramboides craterellus .




* Lepidoptera mundi https://lepidoptera.eu/ - Fauna Europea https://fauna-eu.org/
** Savela, Markku. "Chrysocrambus Bleszynski, 1957". Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms. - http://ftp.funet.fi/