| Blake's tiger moth | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Clade: | Euarthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Superfamily: | Noctuoidea |
| Family: | Erebidae |
| Genus: | Grammia |
| Species: | G. blakei |
| Binomial name | |
| Grammia blakei (Grote, 1864) | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
Grammia blakei, or Blake's tiger moth, is a moth of the family Erebidae. It was described by Augustus Radcliffe Grote in 1864. It is found on the North American Great Plains, from the southern prairie provinces of Canada south to US states of Texas and western Colorado. The habitat consists of sandy prairie, including overgrazed native pastures.
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 Erebidae are a family of moths in the superfamily Noctuoidea. The family is among the largest families of moths by species count and contains a wide variety of well-known macromoth groups. The family includes the underwings (Catocala); litter moths (Herminiinae); tiger, lichen, and wasp moths (Arctiinae); tussock moths (Lymantriinae), including the arctic woolly bear moth ; piercing moths ; micronoctuoid moths (Micronoctuini); snout moths (Hypeninae); and zales, though many of these common names can also refer to moths outside the Erebidae. Some of the erebid moths are called owlets.
Augustus Radcliffe Grote was a British entomologist who worked mainly in America.
The length of the forewings is about 13.8 mm. The ground color of the forewings is dark chocolate brown to black with pale buff bands. The hindwings are pale yellow, but sometimes orange. There are dark brown to black markings. Adults are on wing from late May to early September, usually in one generation per year, although a partial second generation may occur in the southern parts of the range.
The larvae feed on Antennaria dimorpha , Koeleria cristata , Poa sandbergii , Stipa comata , Agropyron smithii , Eurotia lanata , Bouteloua gracilis and Carex species. [1]
Antennaria dimorpha is a North American species of flowering plants in the daisy family known by the common name low pussytoes or gray cushion pussytoes. It is native to western Canada and the western United States as far south as Riverside County in California and Rio Arriba County in New Mexico. It is generally found in dry areas. There are historical records of the species formerly occurring in northwestern Nebraska, but these populations appear now to be gone.
Bouteloua gracilis is a long-lived, warm-season (C4) perennial grass, native to North America.
Carex is a vast genus of more than 2,000 species of grassy plants in the family Cyperaceae, commonly known as sedges. Other members of the Cyperaceae family are also called sedges, however those of genus Carex may be called true sedges, and it is the most species-rich genus in the family. The study of Carex is known as caricology.
