Author: (Douglas, 1845)
Species Overview:
Adult: 14-16 mm wingspan; forewing of male without costal fold; ground colour cream-white, strigulated with fuscous; markings greyish brown, strigulated and marked with black, consisting of basal patch, median fascia, tornal marking and subterminal fascia, the latter coalescing with tornal marking medially; with comparatively prominent black discal streak. Hindwing light grey or grey.
Larvae: head yellowish brown or black; prothoracic plate pale brownish yellow; abdomen yellowish white, pinacula concolorous.
Pupa: 8.0-9.3 x 2.4-2.8 mm, reddish brown.
Taxonomic Description:
Male:
Epinotia signatana adult
Epinotia signatana adults
External characters: 14-16 mm wingspan. Forewing without costal fold; ground colour cream-white, farinose or finely irrorate with pale yellow (tips of scales) and strigulated with fuscous; markings greyish brown, farinose or finely irrorate with pale yellow, irregularly strigulated and marked with black; basal and sub-basal fasciae forming a diffuse but usually moderately well defined basal patch, its outer edge obtusely angulated just below middle; median fascia moderately broad, diffuse, oblique from costa to dorsum and confluent with pre-tornal marking; tornal marking fasciate, dotted with black and edged with submetallic plumbeous strigulae, forming a weak ocellus; subterminal fascia arising from near tornus, coalescing with tornal marking medially; a heavy, longitudinal black supramedial streak traversing median fascia and curving upwards above ocellus into subapical area, often constricted or interrupted immediately beyond the median fascia; cilia cream-white, along termen suffused with grey and with a dark grey sub-basal line sometimes with a whitish subapical dash. Hindwing light grey or grey; cilia paler, with a dark sub-basal line (Bradley et al., 1979).
male gen. E. signatana
Genitalia: Uncus broad at base, slender apically, bifurcate; upper fultura present; socii broad, triangular. Valva long, with notch in ventral margin; neck of valva without group of thickened setae. Aedeagus broad.
Female:
External characters: Similar to male.
female genitalia E. signatana
Genitalia: Ovipositor short; antrum slightly broadening posteriorly; 2 narrow processes present at ostium. Cingulum situated posterior to middle of ductus bursae, ductus seminalis originating here; corpus bursae with two narrow signa.
Biology:
Moths fly in June and July. Larvae feed in May, living in a folded leaf or a spun shoot of the host plant. Pupation occurs in May and June.
Host plants:
Prunus spinosa, Prunus avium and Prunus padus. Also recorded from Prunus cerasus, Crataegus and Malus sylvestris.
Damage:
Larvae are found feeding in a folded leaf or a spun shoot of the host plant. They are not economically important.
Distribution:
Europe, from England and Scandinavia to the Mediterranean Sea, to Eastern Russia and Japan.
Pheromone:
Pheromone unknown.