Categories
Families

Crambidae

Crambidae

121 species in 71 genera are known from Block Island. This family of mostly small to medium sized moths includes leaf tiers, stem borers, and root feeders. Several species known from Block Island feed on aquatic vegetation.

Crambinae

This subfamily includes four of the ten most common moth species at the Hunt property lights, all in the tribe Crambini. These moths feed on roots of grasses as larvae and can be turf pests.

Figure 1. Visual guide to the commonest species of Crambini at the Hunt property. In sighting data at the Hunt property from 2018 to 2022, the most abundant species by total number of sightings are as follows. In parentheses are the number of sightings of the species followed by the rank of the species among all moth species in the Hunt property sighting data: Fissicrambus mutabilis (1291; #1), Parapediasia teterrellus (793; #3), Agriphila vulgivagellus (393; #7), Microcrambus elegans (319; #9), Pediasia trisecta (77; #58) Crambus leachellus (65; #74). Agriphila ruricolellus has been recorded only 18 times at the Hunt property since 2018, a figure exceeded by Crambus agitatellus (58) in addition to the species shown in the graohic. Some other Crambini are commoner than the species shown here in some other locations on Block Island.
Figure 2. Flight time phenology of the species of Crambini common at the Hunt property. Three of the species (Fissicrambus mutabilis, Parapediasia teterrellus, and Pediasia trisecta) are bivoltine, with very similar phenologies, flying in early and late summer. Three (Agriphila vulgivagellus, Agriphila ruricolellus, and Crambus leachellus), are univoltine, with a single fall flight. Microcrambus elegans has three or more generations and flies from June to September.

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