| Chionodes abdominella | |
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| Species: | C. abdominella |
| Binomial name | |
| Chionodes abdominella (Busck, 1903) | |
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Chionodes abdominella is a moth in the family Gelechiidae. [1] It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. [2] [3]
Moths comprise a group of insects related to butterflies, belonging to the order Lepidoptera. Most lepidopterans are moths, and there are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of which have yet to be described. Most species of moth are nocturnal, but there are also crepuscular and diurnal species.
The Gelechiidae are a family of moths commonly referred to as twirler moths or gelechiid moths. They are the namesake family of the huge and little-studied superfamily Gelechioidea, and the family's taxonomy has been subject to considerable dispute. These are generally very small moths with narrow, fringed wings. The larvae of most species feed internally on various parts of their host plants, sometimes causing galls. Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga) is a host plant common to many species of the family, particularly of the genus Chionodes, which as a result is more diverse in North America than usual for Gelechioidea.
North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered by some to be a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea.
The wingspan is 9–10 mm. The forewings are black and white, with the extreme base of the costa black and with a large black triangular costal spot before the middle of the wing, with the tip reaching beyond the fold and with a white central dot on the costa. The apical two-fifths of the wing are black, with a costal and dorsal triangular white spot at the beginning of the cilia nearly or quite reaching each other with their thinly extended tips. The rest of the forewing has two upward projections reaching the costal edge on each side of the costal black triangular spot, white with a faint ochreous tint. The hindwings are light silvery grey. [4]
The wingspan of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777-200 has a wingspan of 60.93 metres, and a wandering albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of 3.63 metres, the official record for a living bird. The term wingspan, more technically extent, is also used for other winged animals such as pterosaurs, bats, insects, etc., and other fixed-wing aircraft such as ornithopters. In humans, the term wingspan also refers to the arm span, which is distance between the length from one end of an individual's arms to the other when raised parallel to the ground at shoulder height at a 90º angle. Former professional basketball player Manute Bol stands at 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) and owns one of the largest wingspans at 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m).
