Author: (Meyrick, 1932)
Apple fruit licker
Species Overview:
Adult: 12-16 mm wingspan; forewing ground colour grey, tips of scales whitish; markings darker grey; dorsal half of median fascia narrow, rather oblique; pretornal spot triangular, partly edged blackish grey. Hindwings grey.
Larva: 12 mm long; head and thoracic shield black; body pale green to greyish white; anal comb absent [Spilonota lechriaspis larva].
Pupa: 8 mm long.
Taxonomic Description:
Male:
Spilonota lechriaspis adult 1
Spilonota lechriaspis adult 2
External characters: 12-16 mm wingspan; head grey; palpi and thorax grey, pale speckled. Antenna with subbasal notch. Forewings elongate, rather dilated, without costal fold; costa gently arced; apex obtuse; termen straight, vertical. Ground colour of forewing grey, tips of scales whitish; costa marked with short, scarcely oblique darker strigulae; basal patch greyer and somewhat striated darker, limited by a well-marked dark grey stria obtusely angulated in middle, preceded by a darker suffusion; dorsal half of median fascia narrow, rather oblique, grey; pretornal spot triangular, partly edged blackish grey; ocellus enclosed by leaden erect streaks reaching 3/4 across wing, the space between these forming a rather oblique grey field at termen crossed by 3 or 4 fine black lines; cilia leaden-grey, tips blackish. Hindwings grey; cilia pale grey with a darker subbasal line (Meyrick, 1912-1937; Moriuti, 1957).
male genitalia S. lechriaspis
valve Spilonota lechriaspis
Genitalia: similar to those of Spilonota ocellana; but valva shorter, less constricted before cucullus.
Female:
External characters: similar to male; antenna without subbasal notch.
female genitalia S. lechriaspis
Genitalia: similar to those of Spilonota ocellana.
Biology:
In the western part of Korea there are 1-2 generations yearly. Larvae hibernate. In the spring, larvae destroy the buds of the host plant. They later move to the leaves, and feed inside a rolled leave.
Host plants:
Apple (Malus), pear (Pyrus), Hall's crab, loquat, chinese bush, Pyracantha angustifolia, Pyracantha coccinea.
Damage:
S. lechriaspis damage
Spilonota lechriaspis is a common pest of apple and pear.
Distribution:
Eastern Russia, China, Korea and Japan.
Pheromone:
Pheromone unknown.
Parasitoids:
Lycorina spilonotae Chao. (Ichneumonidae)