Blastodacna bicristatella

Blastodacna bicristatella

''Blastodacna bicristatella'' is a moth in the family Elachistidae. It was described by Vactor Tousey Chambers in 1875. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Quebec.

The wingspan is 12 mm. The forewings are pale ochreous, dusted and suffused with brown. There is an oblong tuft of dark brown raised scales on the fold and a short brown streak between it and the dorsal margin. There is another tuft of brown scales at the end of the cell and the apical part of the wing is dark brown. Adults have been recorded on wing in May and June.

The larvae feed on ''Crataegus'' species. They feed inside the fruit of their host plant. The species overwinters in the pupal stage.
Blastodacna bicristatella Larvae of this species feed on the fruit of Hawthorn (Cratageus spp.) which are common in the area. Blastodacna bicristatella,Cratageus,Geotagged,Spring,United States,moth

Naming

Blastodacna bicristatella (Chambers, 1875)
Gelechia bicristatella Chambers, 1875
Blastodacna curvilineella (misapplied name, see Explanation of Names below)

Explanation of Names
Wellhouse in 1919 erroneously applied the name "B. curvilineella Chambers [sic]" to what was actually Blastodacna bicristatella (Chambers, 1875) in the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, Memoir #56 in 1922: The Insect Fauna of the Genus Crataegus. He describes the caterpillar. The error was carried forward by Forbes in 1920 and later by Hodges in 1966. Blastodacna curvilineella is not a valid species and specimens identified as that species, such as those at BOLD, usually pertain to Blastodacna bicristatella.

Food

Larvae feed in hawthorn fruits (Crataegus)

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blastodacna_bicristatella
https://bugguide.net/node/view/886452
Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderLepidoptera
FamilyElachistidae
GenusBlastodacna
SpeciesB. bicristatella