Kessleria dimorpha

Kessleria dimorpha
	Female
	Male
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Yponomeutidae
Genus:	Kessleria
Species:	K. dimorpha
Binomial name
	Kessleria dimorpha; Huemer & Mutanen, 2015

Kessleria dimorpha is a moth species of the family Yponomeutidae. It is found only on the French side of Col Agnel (Cottian Alps), close to the Italian border. The habitat consists of rocky areas on siliceous soil

The length of the forewings is 8-8.4 mm for males and about 6 mm for females. The forewings of the males are dark grey, intensively mottled with light grey, ochre-brown and whitish scales and with a white medial patch in the fold. There are black dots, particularly on the costal and subcostal veins and there is a black patch near the base and at the end of the cell, as well as an oblique blackish fascia at about one-third to halfway, reduced to a large patch in the fold. The termen is mixed dark and light grey. The hindwings are dark grey. The ground colour of the forewings of the females is whitish, mottled with dark grey and black, particularly along the fold and in the tornal part. The hindwings are grey. Adults have been recorded on wing in early August.

The larvae are thought to feed on Saxifraga cf. oppositifolia.

Etymology

The species name refers to the sexual dimorphism.[1]

References

Peter Huemer, Marko Mutanen 2015: Alpha taxonomy of the genus Kessleria Nowicki, 1864, revisited in light of DNA-barcoding (Lepidoptera, Yponomeutidae). ZooKeys, 503: 89-133. doi:10.3897/zookeys.503.9590

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[1] Peter Huemer, Marko Mutanen 2015: Alpha taxonomy of the genus Kessleria Nowicki, 1864, revisited in light of DNA-barcoding (Lepidoptera, Yponomeutidae). ZooKeys, 503: 89-133. doi:10.3897/zookeys.503.9590