The Cosmopolitan 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 most of 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...

, the Indo-Australian subtropics and tropics, the eastern Palearctic ecozone and the Near East

Near East

The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...

 and Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

.

Adults are on wing year round. There are multiple generation per year.

Recorded food plants in Israel include Phragmites australis, Sacharum ravennae and Gramineae species. Occasionally they are found on ornamental bamboo and once in an experimental rice field, a pest of winter cereals (wheat, barley) and summer cereals (corn, sorghum, sugar cane). Other recorded food plant include various grasses, such as Oryza

Oryza

Oryza is a genus of seven to twenty species of grasses in the tribe Oryzeae, within the subfamily Bambusoideae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Northern Australia and Africa...

, Paspalum

Paspalum

Paspalum is a genus of the grass family . Commonly known as paspalums, bahiagrasses or dallis grasses most are tall perennial American grasses. They are most diverse in subtropical and tropical regions....

, Saccharum, Triticum and Zea

Zea

Zea may refer to:*Zea , a genus of large grasses**Zea mays, commonly known as maize or corn**Zea, a Canadian short film about popcorn*Helicoverpa zea, a major agricultural pest*Zea , a 1993 alternative EP from dEUS....

species.