Appearance
Forewing dull lilac grey, flushed with fawn colour, especially in median area; a black, semibifid streak from base below cell; lines brownish, double, indistinct; the median shade dark grey or fawn colour, diffuse and prominent; orbicular stigma pale, black-edged; reniform large with grey centre, blackish in lower lobe, with pale annulus and black outline; claviform small, with dark outline; submarginal line dull, with darker shades in places on each side; hindwing greyish fuscous, paler towards base; — in ''basistriga'' Stgr. the ground colour is bluish grey except the median area, and the black basal streak is stronger; this form is recorded from W. Turkestan, E. Siberia, Japan, and China, also from Norway; a small series from Pescocostanzo,Italy seems referable here; — ab. ''grisescens'' Stgr. from Tibet and Turkestan is altogether paler and greyer; — ab. unicolor Tutt is a melanistic form from the North of England, in which the ground is dark reddish brown with a purplish tinge, the stigmata and lines more or less obscured; hindwing much darker; — ''pallida'' Tutt and ''cinerascens'' Tutt are both grey forms without any rufous admixture, the former being pale ochreous grey, and the latter dull ashy grey, the one from Ireland, the other from North England; this latter form probably occurs, however, in other localities, and is distinct from Staudinger's
Central Asiatic form ''grisescens'', for which Spuler quotes Finland and Esthland with a ? as localities. .
Its flight season in the British Isles is May and June.
The larva feeds on various grasses, including oats, fescues, barleys, canarygrasses, timothy, ryes, wheats, and wild rice. This species overwinters as a larva, feeding in mild weather throughout the season. it is grey brown with black tubercles; dorsal line broad, whitish; subdorsal finer; spiracular line broadly whitish, edged above with dark; feeding when quite -young in autumn in the grains of corn and after hibernation in the fresh lower leaves and on grasses.
Its habitat includes fields, grasslands, and steppe.
Naming
*''Apamea sordens finitima''⤷ ''Apamea sordens cerivana''
⤷ ''Apamea sordens sableana'' Mikkola, 2009
References:
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