Trichoptilus viduus
Encyclopedia
Trichoptilus viduus is a moth
of the Pterophoridae family. It is known from South Africa
.
The wingspan
is 14-15 mm. The head and thorax are fuscous with some whitish scales. The palpi are fuscous and the apex of the joints white. The abdomen is ochreous-grey, with a lateral row of white spots. The forewings are fuscous irrorated with darker, there is a blackish dot in a disc and two dots transversely placed at the base of the cleft. There are narrow irregular white transverse bars on both segments. The cilia are grey mixed with blackish towards the base and with white spots on the margins of the markings and above and below the apex of each segment, on the dorsum with blackish scale-projections between these. The tornal white patch is the largest. The hindwings are dark fuscous, the third segment grey irrorated with dark fuscous. The cilia are fuscous, on dorsum with a rather small blackish scale-projection and a few white scales before this.
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 Pterophoridae family. It is known from 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 14-15 mm. The head and thorax are fuscous with some whitish scales. The palpi are fuscous and the apex of the joints white. The abdomen is ochreous-grey, with a lateral row of white spots. The forewings are fuscous irrorated with darker, there is a blackish dot in a disc and two dots transversely placed at the base of the cleft. There are narrow irregular white transverse bars on both segments. The cilia are grey mixed with blackish towards the base and with white spots on the margins of the markings and above and below the apex of each segment, on the dorsum with blackish scale-projections between these. The tornal white patch is the largest. The hindwings are dark fuscous, the third segment grey irrorated with dark fuscous. The cilia are fuscous, on dorsum with a rather small blackish scale-projection and a few white scales before this.