The Pigmy Footman is a 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 Arctiidae

Arctiidae

Arctiidae is a large and diverse family of moths with around 11,000 species found all over the world, including 6,000 neotropical species. This family includes the groups commonly known as tiger moths , which usually have bright colours, footmen , lichen moths and wasp moths...

 family. It is found in the western half of the Palearctic ecozone.

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 24-28 mm. There is one generation per year with adults on wing from June to August.

The larvae feed on various lichen

Lichen

Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...

species on rocks and wooden poles. Larvae are found from August to Juni. The species overwinters in the larval stage.

Subspecies

• Eilema pygmaeola pygmaeola
• Eilema pygmaeola pallifrons (Zeller, 1847) (north-western Africa, Europe, Crimea, Caucasus)
• Eilema pygmaeola banghaasi (Seitz, 1910) (Asia Minor, Transcaucasia
• Eilema pygmaeola saerdabense (Daniel, 1939) (western Kopet Dagh, northern Iran, Mountains of eastern Central Asia)

External links

• UKmoths
• Lepidoptera of Belgium