''Agrotis bigramma'', the great dart, is a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...

of the family

Noctuidae The Noctuidae, commonly known as owlet moths, cutworms or armyworms, are a family of moths. They are considered the most controversial family in the superfamily Noctuoidea because many of the clades are constantly changing, along with the othe ...

. The species was first described by

Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper (2 June 1742 – 27 July 1810) was a German zoologist and naturalist. Born in Wunsiedel in Bavaria, he was professor of zoology at Erlangen university. Life and work Eugen and his brother Friedrich were intr ...

in 1790. It is found from along the southern shores of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and fr ...

to China, the

Levant The Levant () is an approximation, approximate historical geography, historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology an ...

and

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

. Migrants have been reported as far west as

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

with three in one trap at

St Agnes, Isles of Scilly St Agnes ( kw, Agenys) is the southernmost populated island of the Isles of Scilly. Thus the island's Troy Town Farm is the southernmost settlement in the United Kingdom. Description St Agnes joins the island of Gugh by a tombolo, a kind of ...

on 10 August 1997. The

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

is 40–48 mm. Adults are on wing from September to December. There is one generation per year. The larvae feed on the roots of Poaceae species and other low growing herbaceous plants.

References

External links

*
Great Dart at ''UKMoths''

''Lepiforum e.V.''
Agrotis Moths described in 1790 Moths of Africa Moths of Asia Moths of Europe Moths of the Middle East Taxa named by Eugenius Johann Christoph Esper {{Agrotis-stub