''Hada plebeja'', the shears, 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

Noctuidae The Noctuidae, commonly known as owlet moths, cutworms or armyworms, are a family of moths. They are considered the most controversial family in the superfamily Noctuoidea because many of the clades are constantly changing, along with the othe ...

. It is found in Europe and across the

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Si ...

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ...

Turkestan Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan ( fa, ترکستان, Torkestân, lit=Land of the Turks), is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang. Overview Known as Turan to the Persians, western Turke ...

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 millio ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...

. Also Kashmir.

Technical description and variation

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 30–35 mm. The length of the forewings is 14–17 mm. Forewing lilac-grey, suffused with olive fuscous, deepest in median area; claviform stigma small, black-edged, followed by a broad bidentate pale patch at base of vein 2; orbicular and reniform pale grey with white edges; marginal area dark; submarginal line preceded by black dentate markings: veins more or less grey-scaled; hindwing fuscous, paler basewards; the fringe pale; - ''leucostigma'' Haw. has the ground colour whiter; ''hilaris'' Zett. is a form of this in which the whitish orbicular and the pale blotch on vein 2 are confluent and form one long streak; ''ochrea'' Tutt is a form, common in Britain, in which the forewing is varied with yellow scales: - ''latenai'', Pierr. is a melanic mountain form from Switzerland and the Hebrides.

Biology

The moth flies from early June to early July. Larva dark brown; dorsal and lateral lines pale; subdorsal lines formed of dark lunular blotches: spiracles black; head glossy black. The larvae feed on smooth hawksbeard, ''

Hieracium pilosella ''Hieracium'' (), known by the common name hawkweed and classically as (from ancient Greek ιεράξ, 'hawk'), is a genus of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, and closely related to dandelion ('' Taraxacum''), chicory (''Cichori ...

'', ''

Taraxacum ''Taraxacum'' () is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, which consists of species commonly known as dandelions. The scientific and hobby study of the genus is known as taraxacology. The genus is native to Eurasia and Nor ...

'' and alfalfa. preferring the roots.

References

External links

The Shears at UKmothsFunet
Taxonomy
Lepiforum.deVlindernet.nl
Hadenini Moths described in 1761 Moths of Asia Moths of Europe Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Hadenini-stub