Emmelina monodactyla

Emmelina monodactyla, the common plume or morning-glory plume, is a moth of the family Pterophoridae, the plume moths, found in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Carl Linnaeus described it in 1758. The adults are pale russet with a wingspan of 18 to 27 millimetres, and their colouring is extremely variable, from off-white with faint markings to a strong rust brown. The moth often rests with its wings folded tightly together, and adults fly nearly all year round. The caterpillars are greenish-yellow with a broad green band on the back and a narrow broken yellow line down the centre, and the pupae range from green to reddish brown. The larvae feed from May to September in two overlapping generations, mainly on plants of the morning-glory family Convolvulaceae such as hedge bindweed, field bindweed and sweet potato, and also on orache, fat-hen, cardoon, thorn apple and henbane. The common name morning-glory plume refers to its association with the genus Ipomoea.