''Compsoctena aethalea'' is a

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

in the family

Eriocottidae Eriocottidae or Old World spiny-winged moths is a family of insects in the order Lepidoptera whose position relative to other members of the superfamily Tineoidea is currently unknown. There are two subfamilies, Compsocteninae and Eriocottinae. ...

. It was described by

Edward Meyrick Edward Meyrick (25 November 1854 – 31 March 1938) was an English schoolmaster and amateur entomologist. He was an expert on microlepidoptera and some consider him one of the founders of modern microlepidoptera systematics. Life and work Ed ...

in 1907. It is found in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...

is 30–34 mm for males and about 46 mm for females. The forewings of the males are dark fuscous, finely irrorated (sprinkled) with whitish. In females, they are paler, strewn with blackish-fuscous strigulae. There is a dark fuscous transverse fascia-like blotch from the middle of the dorsum, reaching about halfway across the wing and a similar blotch from the middle of the costa directed towards the tornus, reaching more than halfway across the wing. The costa is more or less spotted alternately with pale ochreous yellowish and dark fuscous posteriorly and there are two or three dark fuscous subterminal spots sometimes united into an incomplete fascia. The hindwings are blackish fuscous.''Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society''. 18 (1): 159.

References

Moths described in 1907 Compsoctena Moths of Asia {{Eriocottidae-stub