''Porphyrosela homotropha'' 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
Gracillariidae
Gracillariidae is an important family of insects in the order Lepidoptera and the principal family of leaf miners that includes several economic, horticultural or recently invasive pest species such as the horse-chestnut leaf miner, ''Camerar ...
. It is known from
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...
.
The length of the forewings is 1.45 mm. Adults are on wing from November to January.
Systematics, revisionary taxonomy, and biodiversity of Afrotropical Lithocolletinae (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae)
/ref>
The larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
Th ...
e feed on ''Glycine max
Glycine (symbol Gly or G; ) is an amino acid that has a single hydrogen atom as its side chain. It is the simplest stable amino acid ( carbamic acid is unstable), with the chemical formula NH2‐ CH2‐ COOH. Glycine is one of the proteinoge ...
'' and ''Vigna
''Vigna'' is a genus of plants in the legume family, Fabaceae, with a pantropical distribution.Aitawade, M. M., et al. (2012)Section ''Ceratotropis'' of subgenus ''Ceratotropis'' of ''Vigna'' (Leguminosae–Papilionoideae) in India with a new ...
'' species. They mine
Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to:
Extraction or digging
* Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging
*Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine
Grammar
*Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun
...
the leaves of their host plant.
References
Endemic fauna of Ethiopia
Moths described in 1963
Lithocolletinae
Insects of Ethiopia
Moths of Africa
{{Lithocolletinae-stub