Kingdom Animalia Subphylum Hexapoda Order Lepidoptera Scientific name Orthosia opima | Phylum Arthropoda Class Insecta Family Noctuidae Rank Species | |
 | ||
Similar Orthosia populeti, Orthosia gracilis, Orthosia incerta, Lacanobia contigua, Orthosia cruda | ||
Orthosia opima, the northern drab, is a moth of the family Noctuidae. It is found from central and northern Europe east to central Asia. In the west and north it is found from France through Great Britain up to southern Fennoscandia, south from the Alps up to the Balkans.
Contents
Technical description and variation
The wingspan is 34–39 mm. The wingspan is 35–40 mm. Forewing dull lilac grey speckled with darker: inner and outer lines purplish brown, the median area either filled with brown or with a broad brown median shade; submarginal line broadly pale with dark line before it, nearly straight; upper stigmata large, outlined with pale: hindwing dull brownish grey. Distinguished from incerta by the straighter costa and more produced apex of forewing. — In this insect the continental forms are darker than those found in Britain, of which the commonest is ab. grisea Tutt with pale ochreous grey ground with the pale edges of stigmata strongly marked and broad submarginal line; — brunnea Tutt has the whole wing brownish, but the edges of stigmata and the submarginal line still pale; — but in unicolor Tutt the whole wing is brown.
Biology
Adults are on wing from March to May.
Larva purplish brown above, yellowish green below; dorsal and subdorsal lines finely pale;spiracular line broad, dark brown above, becoming yellowish red below; spiracles pale, black-ringed. The larvae feed on Salix caprea, Berberis thunbergii, Fagus, Quercus, Populus, Prunus spinosa and Vaccinium. .