''Chionodes arenella'' 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 ...

in the family

Gelechiidae The Gelechiidae are a family of moths commonly referred to as twirler moths or gelechiid moths. They are the namesake family of the huge and little-studied superfamily Gelechioidea, and the family's taxonomy has been subject to considerable d ...

. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native En ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

. 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 about 20 mm. The forewings are clay colour with darker greyish shading between the veins, leaving the veins contrastingly pale. The inner and outer discal points are round, and a point in the fold before the inner one are all black. There are a few scattered black-tipped scales, gathering into faint antemedial dots in cell and above inner margin, and along the outer margin, and forming a streak below the basal part of the subcosta. The hindwings are pale pearl grey.Ent. News 33 (4) : 103
The larvae are borers on ''

Ammophila breviligulata ''Ammophila breviligulata'' (American beachgrass or American marram grass) is a species of grass native to eastern North America, where it grows on sand dunes along the Atlantic Ocean and Great Lakes coasts. Beachgrass thrives under conditions o ...

''.

References

Chionodes Moths described in 1922 Moths of North America {{Chionodes-stub