Author: (Curtis, 1850)
Species Overview:
Adult: 12-15 mm wingspan; forewing ground colour silvery grey, sparsely irrorate with white, with poorly defined, grey or fuscous markings, usually with a ferruginous or purplish flush. Hindwing fuscous.
Larva: head blackish brown or black, ocelli black; prothoracic plate reddish brown, posterior margin broadly edged with black, medial sulcus distinct; abdomen ochreous tinged with purplish brown; pinacula small, concolorous with integument; anal plate weakly sclerotized, pale brown, speckled with black; thoracic legs blackish brown externally, paler internally.
Pupa: light orange-brown, somewhat paler ventrally; frons with pointed process; anal segment with four hooked setae dorsally and four pairs of hooked setae ventrally [details pupa C. sylvestrana ].
Taxonomic Description:
Male:
Clavigesta sylvestrana male 1
Clavigesta sylvestrana male 2
External characters: 12-15 mm wingspan. Labial palpus, head, thorax and tegula grey, diffusely irrorate with white. Forewing with apex rounded and termen slightly convex, without costal fold; ground colour silvery grey, sparsely irrorate with white; markings poorly defined, forming irregular grey or fuscous transverse striae, usually with a ferruginous or purplish flush most pronounced in apical area; basal and sub-basal fasciae forming a strigulated basal patch, its outer edge almost straight, slightly outward-oblique from costa; median fascia confluent with pre-tornal marking, its outer edge perpendicular and comparatively well defined; cilia grey, with a blackish sub-basal line. Hindwing fuscous; cilia paler, with a dark sub-basal line (Bradley et al., 1979).
male genitalia C. sylvestrana
Genitalia: Uncus and gnathos absent. Socii rudimentary, not curving outwards. Valva without clasper, narrow, with oval cucullus. Apex of sacculus with a triangular process. Aedeagus without spines on walls.
Female:
Clavigesta sylvestrana female
External characters: similar to male
female genitalia C. sylvestrana
Genitalia: Sterigma reduced, a slightly V-shaped band, each side broadening to a triangular shape; antrum large; ductus bursae with large sclerite, ductus seminalis situated here; two large signa present in corpus bursae.
Variation:
Minor variation is found in the strength of the ferruginous or purplish flush, which can be pronounced or is sometimes absent.
Biology:
Moths fly in June and July. Larvae feed in buds, shoots and flowers of conifers, usually between one and three meters above ground level.
Host plants:
Pinus pinaster, Pinus pinea, Pinus sylvestris, Abies alba , Picea abies.
Damage:
The species is not abundant enough to be of economic importance. Furthermore, feeding by larvae of this species is confined to a zone usually between one and three meters above groundlevel, and can therefore only become of importance to young pine crops. The species, however, can exist at low population levels at greater heights in older crops, and can spread from these to nearby younger plantations.
Distribution:
Western and North-Western Baltic region; England; France; Netherlands; Belgium; Germany, Madeira.
Pheromone:
Pheromone unknown.