''Gelechia paraula'' 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

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 was described by

Edward Meyrick Edward Meyrick (25 November 1854, in Ramsbury – 31 March 1938, at Thornhanger, Marlborough) was an English schoolmaster and amateur entomologist. He was an expert on microlepidoptera and some consider him one of the founders of modern m ...

in 1916. It is found in southern

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is 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 14–15 mm. The forewings are rather dark reddish fuscous, with the bases of the scales more or less whitish and the base spotted with dark fuscous, with an ochreous-yellowish dot in the middle, and one beneath the costa near the base. There are cloudy dark fuscous spots on the costa before one-third, before the middle, and at two-thirds, the first with a pale yellowish raised dot adjacent to its lower extremity. Two cloudy dark fuscous dots are centred with yellowish raised scales obliquely placed in the disc at one-fourth, two others similarly placed (representing the stigmata) before the middle, and two transversely placed at two-thirds. There is a cloudy dark fuscous spot on the tornus opposite the third costal and sometimes undefined oblique fasciae of darker suffusion crossing the wing from the first two costal spots. The hindwings are thinly scaled, light greyish, tending to become prismatic

hyaline A hyaline substance is one with a glassy appearance. The word is derived from el, ὑάλινος, translit=hyálinos, lit=transparent, and el, ὕαλος, translit=hýalos, lit=crystal, glass, label=none. Histopathology Hyaline cartilage is ...

, with the veins, termen, and posterior half of the costal area darker grey.

References

Moths described in 1916 Gelechia {{Gelechia-stub