The sycamore (''Acronicta aceris'') 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 ...

of the family

Noctuidae The Noctuidae, commonly known as owlet moths, cutworms or armyworms, are a family (biology), family of moths. Taxonomically, they are considered the most controversial family in the superfamily Noctuoidea because many of the clades are constantly ...

. The species was first described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''. It is distributed through most of Europe, from central

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

south to

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

. To the east it is found from the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

and

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

to western Asia. The forewings of this species are pale to dark grey with rather indistinct markings apart from a thin black basal streak. The hindwings are white, sometimes with dark streaks at the margin. 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 40–45 mm.

Technical description and variation

Forewing whitish grey; basal streak thin and interrupted: a black streak through outer line on submedian fold; hindwing white in male, greyish in female, the veins blackish. — ab. ''infuscata'' Haw. (2f) has the whole forewing dark suffused grey. - ab. ''candelisequa'' Esp., to which Staudinger wrongly sinks ''infuscata'', seems, from the figure, to be intermediate between it and the type, if it belong here at all: ab. ''intermedia'' Tutt (= ''candelisequa'' Gn. nec Esp.) is the common British form, with forewing darker, tinged with ochreous, and more distinct markings; ab. ''judaea'' Stgr. from Palestine is paler, the forewing greyish white. Larva with diffuse tufts of long yellow or fulvous hairs; a dorsal series of snow white, purple-edged, diamond-shaped spots, sometimes united by a white line: head black. Warren. W. in 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

Biology

The adults fly at night from June to August and are attracted to light and sugar. The extraordinary

larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...

is very distinctive, thickly covered with very long yellow and orange hairs with white spots outlined in black along the back. It feeds on various

maple ''Acer'' is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated si ...

s and also on common horse-chestnut,

large-leaved lime ''Tilia platyphyllos'', the large-leaved lime or large-leaved linden, is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae (Tiliaceae). It is a deciduous tree, native to much of continental Europe as well as southwestern Great Britain, growing ...

mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of 19 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 subordinat ...

and

pedunculate oak ''Quercus robur'', the pedunculate oak, is a species of flowering plant in the beech and oak family, Fagaceae. It is a large tree, native to most of Europe and western Asia, and is widely cultivated in other temperate regions. It grows on soi ...

. The species overwinters as a

pupa A pupa (; : pupae) is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the stages th ...

. Contrary to its bright colours, it is not poisonous, but may cause skin irritation if handled excessively.

Subspecies

*''A. a. aceris'' - Europe *''A. a. taurica'' -

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

*''A. a. judaea'' -

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

Notes

References

* *

External links

*
''Fauna Europaea''"08778 ''Acronicta aceris'' (Linnaeus, 1758) - Ahorn-Rindeneule"
''Lepiforum e. V.'' Retrieved 19 October 2020. {{Taxonbar, from=Q402422 Acronicta Moths described in 1758 Moths of Europe Moths of Asia Moths of Africa Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus