Author: Kawabe, 1963
Species Overview:
Adult: 18-20 mm wingspan; forewings brownish to brownish grey, markings blackish, indistinct; hindwings greyish cream.
Taxonomic Description:
Male:
Acleris nigrilineana male
Acleris nigrilineana adult
External characters: 18-20 mm wingspan. Labial palpus yellowish-grey, mixed with brownish medially; head and thorax brownish grey; abdomen light brownish grey. Forewing slightly expanding terminally; costa curved at base, then rather straight; apex pointed; termen oblique. Ground colour brownish to brownish grey; markings indistinct, consisting of postbasal line and remainders of the median fascia, and a diffused costal blotch present; edges of the markings and some erect scales marked black. Cilia concolorous with the ground colour. Hindwing greyish cream, mixed brownish; cilia rather concolorous (after Razowski, 1966; Razowski, 1984).
male genitalia A. nigrilineana
Genitalia: Tegumen slender, tapering terminally, with thin apical lobes; socii elongate, broad anteriorly, slender posteriorly; tuba analis large, protruding posteriorly with small ventral plate. Sacculus broad basally, with short, spined, termination and with deep notch in ventral margin reaching half width of valva, along which several short, curved thorns; brachiola delicate, slender. Aedeagus very short, broad, cup-like, with one or two strong, spine-like cornuti. Transtilla narrow.
Female:
External characters: Forewing rather uniformly broad; colour and markings as in male.
female gen. A. nigrilineana
Genitalia: Papillae analis normally developed with rather short anterior portions; apophyses posteriores long; apophyses anteriores short; sterigma broad with rather short anterior projections which are concave anteriorly; ostium bursae rounded; antrum well sclerotized; ductus bursae fairly long; signum strong, dentate. Heavily sclerotized, transformed sternite of pregenital segment present.
Biology:
Moth occur from September till winter, they then hibernate. Moths are back on wings again from February to early May.
Host plants:
Abies spp.
Damage:
Larvae live within spun needles. Damage is of no economic importance.
Distribution:
Scandinavia; Denmark; Poland; Estonia; Japan: Honshu; Korea.
Pheromone:
E 11,13-14Al : 1
E 11-14Al : 1 (Ando et al., 1987)
Acleris abietana Hübner
Acleris abietana Hübner is very similar to Acleris nigrilineana. Larvae of this Northern-European species feed on Pinus, Abies and Picea. The differences in the shape of the forewing and colouration are very slight.
Ventral edge of sacculus without thorns in A. abietana [male genitalia A. abietana ] (with several short, curved thorns in A. nigrilineana ). The female genitalia differ in the shape of the anterior projections of the sterigma which are shorter in Acleris nigrilineana than in Acleris abietana [female gen. A. abietana ]