Bright-line brown-eye

Lacanobia oleracea Bright-line brown-eye
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Noctuidae
Genus:	Lacanobia
Species:	L. oleracea
Binomial name
Lacanobia oleracea (Linnaeus, 1758)

The bright-line brown-eye (Lacanobia oleracea) is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is a common species throughout Europe, but is also found in North Africa (Morocco and Algeria), temperate North Asia and Central Asia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Turkestan, northern India, China, Korea and Japan.

Caterpillar

Pupa

This species' common name is usefully descriptive: The forewings are dark reddish-brown marked with a prominent light orange-brown stigma and a bright white subterminal line. The hindwings are grey, darker towards the termen. The wingspan is 34–44 mm. They are attracted to light, sugar and nectar-rich flowers.

Technical description and variation

See glossary for terms used

Forewing red brown clouded with darker; veins grey, whitish towards termen: reniform stigma orange in its upper part, dark fuscous below; orbicular round, white-edged, sometimes very small; submarginal line finely white, toothed on veins 3, 4 to termen; hindwing dull whitish, pale fuscous towards termen; the veins dark;-the ground colour varies on one side to black brown, ab. obscura Spul, and on the other to rufous, ab. rufa Tutt ; ab. variegata Aust, from Morocco, is paler, reddish yellow.^[1]

The larva is green or brown dotted with white with black and yellow spiracular lines down the side with darker edging.The tubercles are black.It feeds on a wide range of plants.^[2] and is occasionally a pest of cultivated tomatoes. The species overwinters as a pupa.

Flight from latter half of June to July. Occasional second generation from end of August to first half of September.^[3]

References

1. Seitz, A. Ed., 1914 Die Großschmetterlinge der Erde, Verlag Alfred Kernen, Stuttgart Band 3: Abt. 1, Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen eulenartigen Nachtfalter, 1914
2. "Robinson, G. S., P. R. Ackery, I. J. Kitching, G. W. Beccaloni & L. M. Hernández, 2010. HOSTS - A Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants. Natural History Museum, London.".
3. Lacanobia reference

External links

• Lepiforum
• Funet Taxonomy
• Fauna Europaea

Reading

• Chinery, Michael Collins Guide to the Insects of Britain and Western Europe 1986 (Reprinted 1991)
• Skinner, Bernard Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles 1984