| Kessleria orobiae | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Female | |
 | |
| Male | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Yponomeutidae |
| Genus: | Kessleria |
| Species: | K. orobiae |
| Binomial name | |
| Kessleria orobiae Huemer & Mutanen, 2015 | |
Kessleria orobiae is a moth of the family Yponomeutidae. It is found only in the Orobian Alps in the Bergamo Province in Italy. The habitat consists of rocky areas on calcareous and siliceous soil.
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a European country consisting of a peninsula delimited by the Italian Alps and surrounded by several islands. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean sea and traversed along its length by the Apennines, Italy has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. The country covers an area of 301,340 km2 (116,350 sq mi) and shares open land borders with France, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. Italy has a territorial exclave in Switzerland (Campione) and a maritime exclave in the Tunisian Sea (Lampedusa). With around 60 million inhabitants, Italy is the fourth-most populous member state of the European Union.
The length of the forewings is 6.7–7.3 mm for males and 5.9–6.6;mm for females. The forewings of the males are whitish-grey, intensively mottled with blackish-grey spots all over wing and a few ochre-brown scales in the dorsal part. There are blackish-grey patches at base of costa and at end of the cell and an oblique blackish-grey fascia at about one-third to halfway. The termen is whitish-grey. The hindwings are dark grey. The ground colour of the forewings of the females is whitish-grey, intensively mottled with blackish-grey spots all over the wing and with a few ochre-brown scales in the dorsal part. There are blackish-grey patches at the base of the costa and at the end of the cell and an oblique blackish-grey fascia at about one-third to halfway. The termen is whitish-grey. The hindwings are dark grey. Adults have been recorded on wing from late June to mid-August.
The larvae feed on a Saxifraga paniculata and other Saxifraga species. They live in the shoots and as a leaf miner in the basal leaves of their host plant. Mined leaves are partially spun together and covered with a fine silken web.
Saxifraga paniculata is a species of saxifrage native to the United States, Europe and Asia.
A leaf miner is any one of a large number of species of insects in which the larval stage lives in and eats the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths (Lepidoptera), sawflies and flies (Diptera), though some beetles also exhibit this behavior.
