ABH 3.005	Ghost Moth Hepialus humuli		BF 0014
Back To	(Linnaeus, 1758)
Phenology	JAN  FEB  MAR  APR  MAY  JUN  JUL  AUG  SEP  OCT  NOV  DEC
Family	Hepialidae
Wingspan	c.50 mm.( Male 44-46mm, Female 46-48mm. )
Description	Ghost' comes from the white males, which can sometimes be seen at dusk, 'hovering' over grassy areas. The females are quite different, being yellow, marked with orange. The males have leks in grassy places on downland and in meadows where they fly in numbers at dusk, and the females wander, presumably on egg-laying missions, and come occasionally to light The female is larger (wingspan about 48 mm) and has yellowish-buff forewings with darker linear markings and brown hindwings
Life Cycle	The adults fly during June and July. The larva is polyphagous in the root systems of many grasses and herbaceous plants such as Stinging Nettle and Hop, over-wintering twice.
Habitat
Links
Images	"Hepialus humuli" by Engeser - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.