Acrapex metaphaea is a species of moth

Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

 of the Noctuidae

Noctuidae

The Noctuidae or owlet moths are a family of robustly-built moths that includes more than 35,000 known species out of possibly 100,000 total, in more than 4,200 genera. They constitute the largest family in the Lepidoptera....

 family. It is found in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, including Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

 and South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

.

The wingspan

Wingspan

The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

is about 26 mm.

Description

Head and thorax ochreous tinged with rufous and mixed with some black-brown; palpi dark brown; abdomen dorsally dark brown, ventrally ochreous tinged with rufous. Fore wing rufous, the costal area, median nervure and veins arising from it, and inner margin suffused with dark brown, slight white points in and beyond lower angle of cell; traces of a subterminal series of black points, a slight oblique dark shade from termen below apex; a terminal series of black points. Hind wing dark reddish brown, the cilia with fine pale line at base; the underside greyish suffused and irrorated with fuscous.

External links

• Synonymous Checklist of the South African Lepidoptera