Species Paleacrita vernata - Spring Cankerworm Moth - Hodges#6662

6662

Spring cankerworm

Paleacrita vernata Peck, 1795

Synonyms

Anisopteryx sericeiferata Walker, 1862

Paleacrita autumnata Packard, 1876

Paleacrita speciosa Hulst, 1898

Phylogenetic Sequence # 911083

VERNATA - From Latin vern meaning "the spring'

Powell & Opler (2009) reported three described species of the genus Paleacrita in North America. (1)

Male forewing length 11-18 mm., females wingless. (1)

Genitalia:

♂

Nova Scotia into Saskatchewan, Maine to Tennessee and North Carolina in the mountains. It is found in the central United States from Michigan to North Dakota, south to Mississippi, Louisiana, and eastern Texas. It is known from Colorado, and there is one record from Siskiyou County, California

Adults fly from February to late May. (1)

Larval hosts are a wide variety of broadleaf trees and shrubs, to include maple, elm, birch and plum (1)

Wingless females lay batches up to 250 eggs under loose bark or in crevices. Early instar larvae disperse by ballooning on silken threads. Full grown larvae drop from the host and pupate in the soil without making a silken cocoon. Winter is passed as pupa (1)

Fall Cankerworm Moth - Alsophila pometaria

Small Phigalia Moth - Phigalia strigataria

Powell, J.A. & P.A. Opler, 2009. Moths of Western North America. University of California Press, plate 28, fig. 36; p. 212. (1)(2)

Moth Photographers Group (3)

Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) (4)