''Phthorimaea sphenophora'' 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 ...

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 Taxonomic rank, superfamily Gelechioidea, and the family's taxonomy (biology), taxonomy ...

. It was described by

Thomas de Grey, 6th Baron Walsingham Thomas de Grey, 6th Baron Walsingham (29 July 1843 – 3 December 1919), of Merton Hall, Norfolk, was an English politician and amateur entomologist. Family business Walsingham was the son of Thomas de Grey, 5th Baron Walsingham, and Augusta- ...

, in 1897. It is found in the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

, where it has been recorded from

Grenada Grenada is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea. The southernmost of the Windward Islands, Grenada is directly south of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and about north of Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and the So ...

. 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 about . The forewings are olive-brown, inclining to ferruginous at the base, the lighter basal patch is bounded externally by an oblique cuneiform ochreous streak, tending outwards from the costa at one-fifth from the base and reaching to the fold. A small ochreous spot lies at the end of the discal cell, and a larger, rather paler, costal spot at the commencement of the costal cilia. Around the termen are four or five ill-defined pale ochreous spots before the commencement of the olive-brown cilia. The hindwings are blue-grey.Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1897 : 73

References

Phthorimaea Moths described in 1897 {{Gnorimoschemini-stub