Cnephasia cupressivorana

Description

Cnephasia cupressivorana is a species of moth of the family Tortricidae. It is found on Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and in Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Romania, North Macedonia, Greece, Asia Minor and Kyrgyzstan. The wingspan is 16–20 mm. Adults are on wing from March to the end of May, probably in one generation per year. The larvae feed on Cupressus, Scrophularia and Prunus armeniaca. Cnephasia is a genus of tortrix moths (family Tortricidae). It belongs to the subfamily Tortricinae and therein to the tribe Cnephasiini, of which it is the type genus. The type species around which Cnephasia was established by J. Curtis in 1826 (in the explanations to plate 100 of his British Entomology) was claimed to be "Tortrix logiana". However, this was a misidentification; the name of T. logiana (described by C.A. Clerck in 1759 and nowadays called Acleris logiana) was until the early 20th century frequently applied to related species in error. Curtis simply repeated the mistake of A.H. Haworth, who had in his 1811 volume of Lepidoptera Britannica discussed a Cnephasia under Clerck's name, but the original misidentification may well go back to Linnaeus' treatment of "T. logiana" in Systema naturae. Eventually, this was resolved, and the type species of Cnephasia was determined to be the tortrix moth described as Olethreutes pasiuana by J. Hübner in 1822.