''Buckleria parvulus'', the sundew plume moth, is a
moth of the family
Pterophoridae. The species was
first described by
William Barnes and
Arthur Ward Lindsey
Arthur Ward Lindsey (1894, Council Bluffs, Iowa – 1963, Lancaster, Ohio) was an American entomologist.
Arthur Ward Lindsey was educated at Morningside College in Sioux City gaining his Bachelor of Arts in 1916. Collecting butterflies from his y ...
in 1965 from Archbold Biological Station, Florida. It is found in the south-eastern United States, including
Florida,
North Carolina,
Louisiana,
Alabama,
Georgia,
Mississippi,
South Carolina and
Texas.
Its average
wingspan is about .
The
larvae feed on ''
Drosera brevifolia
''Drosera brevifolia'' (the dwarf, small or red sundew), is a carnivorous plant of the family Droseraceae and is the smallest sundew species native to the United States. This species differs considerably from the pink sundew, '' Drosera capilla ...
'', ''
Drosera intermedia'' and ''
Drosera filiformis''. They feed on the glandular
trichomes,
leaves
A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...
and
flowers of their host plant. They first ingest the sticky fluid at the tips and then clear away a patch of these hairs before feeding on the rest of the leaf. They will also eat dead insects trapped by the leaves. Pupation takes place on the inflorescence stalks or on nearby blades of grass. The
pupa is light green at first, changing to yellowish tan and brown.
References
Moths described in 1921
Oxyptilini
Endemic fauna of the United States
Moths of North America
{{Pterophorinae-stub