''Pyncostola magnanima'' 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 1912. It is found in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

, where it was recorded from what was then the

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( nl, Oranje Vrijstaat; af, Oranje-Vrystaat;) was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeat ...

. 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 27–28 mm. The forewings are pale brownish ochreous mixed with white and more or less irrorated (sprinkled) with dark fuscous, the veins sometimes partially streaked with white. There are cloudy dark fuscous dots beneath the costa near the base and at one-sixth and two cloudy dark fuscous dots on the fold obliquely beyond these, connected by a fine dark fuscous streak with the plical stigma, this streak edged above with white. The stigmata are dark fuscous, the plical much before the first discal, the first discal elongate, the second dot-like. The hindwings are grey.''Annals of the South African Museum''. 10 (3): 60.

References

Endemic moths of South Africa Moths described in 1912 Pyncostola {{Anomologinae-stub