Grass emerald

The grass emerald, Pseudoterpna pruinata, is a moth first described by Johann Siegfried Hufnagel in 1767. It ranges across central and south-eastern Europe except the far north, through Asia Minor and the Caucasus east to the Urals and Siberia, and it is fairly common across Great Britain apart from northern Scotland. In the southern Alps it rises to about 1500 metres. The wingspan is 30 to 35 millimetres, and the wings are green, sometimes bluish and sometimes mixed with whitish, crossed by dark green lines with a thick whitish submarginal line. Named variations such as agrestaria and virellata differ mainly in how strongly the lines show. The larva is stout and green with white and pink lines, and the pupa rests in a slight cocoon among leaves. The moth favours dry, warm heath, steppe, semi-dry grassland, stone quarries and forest edges, and its larvae feed on broom, gorse and petty whin.