Agrochola lunosa (Haworth, 1809)

Host plants:
The larvae feed on grasses (Poaceae).

Habitat:
Agrochola lunosa most often inhabits extensively grazed pastures, grassy slopes, nutrient-poor grasslands and similar places. I recorded many larvae in pastures and mountain slopes up to 1600m in the central Spanish Sierra de Gredos.

Life cycle:
The larvae are adopted to the general grass growth between late autumn and spring like it occurs in SW-Europe. E.g. in the Sierra de Gredos, they grow over winter and are mature in March and April. Young greenish, they become brown when older. Then tey rest on the ground below and among dead parts of grasses during daytime. The prepupal phase lasts very long and the moths occur in autumn (mainly September and October).

Remarks:
This is a Atlanto-Mediterranean species which occurs in Europe from the Iberian Peninsula across France, Benelux and Great Britain to SW-Scandinavia. I spreads in central Europe since nearly hundred years, faster in the last decades. It is found in western parts of Germany, but in the meanwhile alos in more easterly parts like Saxony. It is also known from Switzerland and Italy. It has been introduced by accident to the USA (Maryland).