Author: (Butler, 1881)
Cypress bark moth
Species Overview:
Adult: wingspan 13-16 mm; forewing ground colour white, suffused with brown; markings greyish brown; inner margins poorly defined, outer margins blackish, well defined. Basal and sub-basal fascia not confluent; the outer edges of sub-basal fascia and median fascia angulate; subterminal fascia arising from below middle of termen, extending obliquely to costal strigulae, or coalescent medially with median fascia; apical spot brown. Hindwing fuscous.
Egg: deposited singly on the basal parts of needles.
Taxonomic description:
Male:
Epinotia granitalis male
External characters: wingspan 13-16 mm. Frons and apex of palpi snow-white; vertex of head black; back of head and thorax ochreous. Forewing without costal fold; ground colour white, suffused with brown; markings greyish brown; inner margins poorly defined, outer margins blackish, well defined. Basal and sub-basal fascia not confluent; the outer edges of sub-basal fascia and median fascia angulate; subterminal fascia arising from below middle of termen, extending obliquely to costal strigulae, or coalescent medially with median fascia; apical spot brown. Hindwing fuscous.
male genitalia E. granitalis (aedeagus omitted)
Genitalia: cucullus elongated; ventral margin of valva angulate posterior to small notch, a tuft of long setae present posterior to costal hook; uncus bifid; socii long and slender.
Female:
Epinotia granitalis female
External characters: forewing markings similar to male.
Genitalia: no illustration or description of female genitalia available.
Biology:
Adults emerge from early June to late July. They fly and mate from sunset to midnight in the field. Females lay single eggs on the basal parts of needles. The mean longevity of the adult is 15 days and the fecundity is about 80 eggs per female. Eggs hatch after about 10 days and the young larvae bore into the needles or green branches. In August and September the tip of the infested branch dies and turns red. As time passes, larvae change their feeding sites towards the stem, and by the end of autumn they reach the third or fourth instar, at which time they bore into the basal parts of the primary branches to hibernate. In early spring, larvae resume feeding and change their feeding sites to lower ones on the stem. When the phloem is damaged by the larval feeding, resin usually oozes from the destroyed areas. Larvae then leave these sites and search for new feeding sites. They moult in May towards the final (fifth) instar and subsequently pupate from May to July in cocoons located in cracks of the outer bark (Furuta and Kobayashi, 1991)
Host plants:
Japanese cedar, Cryptomeria japonica and cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa.
Damage:
The larvae of Epinotia granitalis bore into the bark and feed on the phloem of a standing tree. The cambium is injured, but since the damaged area is only small (1.5 x 2.0 cm on an average), the callus soon heals the damaged part and the tree continues to grow normally. However, the scar and discolouration of the damaged part remain and increase annually in numbers in the xylem. In mature trees, the primary branches are large and larval feeding does not occur on the trunk. However, damage on the trunk does occur when the host tree is between 5 and 35 years old. In heavily infested plantations, most of the standing trees have hundreds of feeding scars in their stems, with a consequent degradation in the commercial value of the timber (Furuta and Kobayashi, 1991).
Distribution:
Japan
Pheromone:
Pheromone unknown.