Noctuidae - Acontiinae

 

 

 

Spragueia apicalis (Herrich-Schäffer)

Emmelia apicalis Herrich-Schäffer, 1868, Corresp.-Blatt Zool.-Min. Ver. Regensburg, 22:152.

Mnesipyrga trichostrota Meyrick, 1913, Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1913:171.

Emmelia apicella Grote, 1872, Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc., 4:21.
Type locality: [USA], central Alabama.

Agrophila truncatula Zeller, 1873, Verh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien, 23:203, pl. 3, fig. 1.

Fruva accepta H. Edwards, 1881, Papilio, 1:24.

Diagnosis: Spragueia apicalis is strongly sexually dimorphic. The forewing of the male is primarily yellow. The base of the wing has a triangular rusty component. The outer third of the forewing is shaded with a light orange and there is a diffuse brown blotch along the outer margin. The hindwing is a uniform smokey dark brown. The thorax is rusty red. The female is primarily a hoary gray-brown. As in the male there is a rusty-red triangular patch at the base of the wing and this triangle is outlined with yellow along its dorsal-outer margin. The apex of the wing is yellow-white, tipped with gray-brown. The hindwing, as in the male, is dark, smokey brown.

Distribution: (Based only on specimens in the USNM). Spragueia apicalis is found throughout the eastern and central United States from Pennsylvania in the north and east, southward through most of Florida. The ranges stretches westward to Missouri and Illinois in the west to eastern Texas in the south.

Identification Quality: Good

Larva: Unknown

Foodplants: Spragueia apicalis has the following foodplants listed: Gutierrezia sarothrae (Asteraceae) (under the name apicella) (HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants, British Museum of Natural History, 2009).

Distribution map based on specimens in the USNM

 

Spragueia apicalis

Similar Species

No Similar Species in North America