| Paraplatyptilia maea | |
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| Species: | P. maea |
| Binomial name | |
| Paraplatyptilia maea (Barnes & Lindsey, 1921) [1] | |
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Paraplatyptilia maea is a moth of the family Pterophoridae that is found in North America, including California, Utah, Colorado, Oregon and Alberta.
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 Pterophoridae or plume moths are a family of Lepidoptera with unusually modified wings. Though they belong to the Apoditrysia like the larger moths and the butterflies, unlike these they are tiny and were formerly included among the assemblage called "microlepidoptera".
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 19–25 millimetres (0.75–0.98 in). The head and body are greyish white with some brown scales. The abdomen has dark subdorsal lines just beyond the middle and similar lines below. The antennae are brown dotted above. There is a dark dot before the cleft on the forewings and a costal shade above, vaguely connected by a brownish grey shade which runs back along the costa. On the costa it is always followed by a whitish dash which may extend further across the wing as a pale shade. The fringes are grey with white the bases containing dark basal scales. The hindwings are more brownish with fringes of the same colour. [2]
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).
Antennae, sometimes referred to as "feelers", are paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods.
