Scythropia crataegella

Description

Scythropia crataegella, the hawthorn moth, is a species of moth in the family Plutellidae from western Eurasia. It is usually placed in a small subfamily Scythropiinae, which is sometimes included in the Yponomeutinae of the Yponomeutidae. Described as Phalaena crataegella by Linnaeus in 1767, it was made the type species of Scythropia, the only Scythropiinae genus currently recognized, by Jacob Hübner in the 1820s. Initially (in 1796), Hübner had misidentified the grass moth Eudonia lacustrata – much larger and only distantly related, but somewhat similar in color and pattern – as Linnaeus' Phalaena crataegella . Similarly, a junior synonym of this species, Tinea cornella, has frequently been misapplied – and sometimes still is even today – to the fairly closely related apple blossom tineid.