Author: (Guenée, 1845)
Species Overview:
Adult: 10-15 mm wingspan. Forewing strongly falcate; more or less uniformly reddish brown with a yellow-edged, pale grey ocellar patch near termen (this patch relatively narrow) and some yellowish and blackish streaks at costa terminally; cilia cream. Hindwing brownish grey.
Egg: transparent at first, turning yellow during development; deposited singly, usually on the upperside of a leaf of the food plant.
Larva: 8 mm long; head pale yellowish brown; prothoracic plate yellowish; abdomen greenish white or yellowish.
Pupa: 5 mm long; yellow to brownish yellow.
Taxonomic Description:
Male:
Ancylis selenana adult 1
Ancylis selenana adult 2
External characters: 10-15 mm wingspan. Forewing strongly falcate; more or less uniformly reddish brown with a yellow-edged, pale grey ocellar patch near termen and some yellowish and blackish streaks at costa terminally; cilia cream. Hindwing brownish grey.
male genitalia A. selenana
Genitalia: Uncus absent; gnathos absent; socii fairly large. Apex of sacculus with projection, the apex of which is rounded; valva with fairly large notch in ventral margin. Cucullus with large ventral lobe. Aedeagus with several short cornuti.
Female:
External characters: Similar to male
female genitalia A. selenana
Genitalia: Sterigma weakly sclerotized dorsally; lamella antevaginalis rounded; antrum short; corpus bursae with two large signa; base of signa elongated.
Biology:
The species has two generations yearly in Germany and Poland. In Southern Europe, there can be up to five generations yearly. Eggs are deposited singly on the upperside of a leaf of the host plant. Each female produces about 120 eggs. After 6-10 days the eggs hatch. The young larva moves to the underside of the leaf, where it lives in a flimsy weblike spinning or between spun leaves, and feeds on the parenchyma, leaving the upper cuticle of the leaf intact. Fifth instar larvae of the last generation hibernate until the spring of the following year.
In Germany and Poland, moths of this species fly in April and May and again in July and August; larvae occur in June and October (Bovey, 1966; Razowski, 1987b; Hannemann, 1962).
Host plants:
Crataegus (hawthorn), Prunus cerasus vulgaris (sour cherry), Prunus avium (sweet cherry), Prunus virginiana (choke-cherry), Prunus spinosa (blackthorn), Prunus domestica (plum), Prunus armeniaca (apricot), Malus (apple) and Pyrus (pear).
Damage:
Larvae damage leaves of the host plant, which remain attached to the plant until the end of the season. In combination with other leaf-eating insects, this species can cause serious damage to young trees, but so far it has only occasionally been recorded from orchards.
Distribution:
Europe: from Southern Sweden and Finland to France and Italy and to the Balkan Peninsula; Asia Minor to Southern Siberia and Korea.
Pheromone:
Pheromone unknown.