Acontia lucida

Acontia lucida (pale shoulder) is a moth of the family Noctuidae.[2]

Acontia lucida
Acontia lucida. Dorsal view
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Superfamily: Noctuoidea
Family: Noctuidae
Genus: Acontia
Species:
A. lucida
Binomial name
Acontia lucida
(Hufnagel, 1766)
Synonyms[1]

Distribution and habitat

This species can be found in most of Europe, east to Turkey, Iran and India. It has also been recorded from Algeria. It is a rare migrant to the south coast of Great Britain.[3][4] The pale shoulder can be found in grasslands, dry meadows, steppes, dunes and roadsides, where the host plants are present.

Description
Acontia lucida. Lateral view

The wingspan of Acontia lucida can reach 26–30 mm. Head, thorax and abdomen are white. The forewings show a greyish white front part and a wide dark brown median band, dark-mottled and marbled, larger in the centre. A white mark is present on the outer edge of the forewings, while a brown mark is close to the apex. Hindwings are whitish-fuscous, with a brown band near the apex. Larvae are green or brown, with transversal whitish bands.[5]

Biology

The larvae are polyphagous, feeding on various herbaceous plants, mainly on mallow (Malva species), common marshmallow (Althaea officinalis), field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), goosefoots (Chenopodium) and dandelion (Taraxacum). Adults are on the wing on sunny days in May and August in two generations.[4] They are attracted to light. This species overwinters as pupa below ground. Rarely it is a migrant species.[6]

Mounted specimen
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References
  1. Funet
  2. Biolib
  3. Fauna europaea
  4. Pale shoulder on UK Moths
  5. L. Watson and M. J. Dallwitz Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae |Genera of Lepidoptera-Noctuidae
  6. Lepidoptera and their ecology on Pyrgus.de


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