| Elachyophtalma fergussonis | |
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| Species: | E. fergussonis |
| Binomial name | |
| Elachyophtalma fergussonis Rothschild, 1920 [1] | |
Elachyophtalma fergussonis is a moth in the family Bombycidae. It was described by Walter Rothschild in 1920. It is found on Fergusson Island. [2]
Moths are a polyphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. 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 Bombycidae are a family of moths. The best-known species is Bombyx mori (Linnaeus) or silkworm, native to northern China and domesticated for millennia. Another well-known species is Bombyx mandarina, also native to Asia.
Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild,, was a British banker, politician, zoologist and scion of the Rothschild family. As a prominent Zionist leader, he was presented with the famous Balfour Declaration which pledged to a Jewish national home in Palestine. Rothschild was the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 1925 to 1926.
The wingspan is 39–58 mm. The forewings are sooty black grey, with a broad creamy-white curved band. The basal two-fifths of the hindwings is sooty grey black and the outer three-fifths yellow, slightly sprinkled with dark scales.
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).
