Fierce Nosey

Garden Grass-veneer, Chrysoteuchia culmella

One of the most common moths encountered in Ireland, and in Europe as a whole, this time of year is the Garden Grass-veneer, Chrysoteuchia culmella. A small, buff coloured moth with a metallic fringe on its forewings, it's most striking features are its almost piercing blue eyes and its prominent “nose”. This is in fact a modified mouth part, a distinctive feature of all Pyraloidea moths, the Snout Moths (1). Flying at night, the adults are usually seen in the day time, flying ponderously when disturbed from the grass stems that they rest on. The young feed on a variety of grass species, and have been implicated in significant damage to grasslands (2).

Garden Grass-veneer, Chrysoteuchia culmella

References:

1. Reaka-Kudla and Wilson, 1997. Biodiversity 2 (Ed. Solis) pp. 231-232
2. Gomboc et al., 1994. Zbornik Biotehniske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani 63 pp. 213-221