Amphipyra perflua (Fabricius, 1787)

Host plants:
The larvae are oligophagous on deciduous trees, but much more limited than Amphipyra pyramidea. I found caterpillars almost exclusively on Ligustrum vulgare and more rarely Lonicera xylosteum (Iller Valley in Southern Germany).

Habitat:
Amphipyra perflua is dependent on undergrowth-rich, open forests (riparian forests, ravine woods, hillside forests, Erica carnea pine forests etc).

Life cycle:
The egg overwinters. Caterpillars are found from May to June, possibly already in late April. Moths fly from July to September.

Endangerment: endangered

Endangerment factors:
Amphipyra perflua is in decline outside the Alps. The reason is modern forest management, which does not tolerate bright, less productive and edge-rich stocks, the eutrophication of the landscape and the destruction of large floodplain forests. In the Bavarian side of the lower Iller Valley, Amphipyra perflua could survive for example near Memmingen in a small landscape reserve but where conditions deteriorate at present more and more. On the opposite river side in Baden-Württemberg, where dominate dense and dark spruce fields since decades, however, it is still present only in a narrow strip along the river.

Remarks:
Amphipyra perflua is distributed from Central Europe to Japan. In Germany it is very local and rare and is found mainly in the alpine valleys, along some rivers coming from the Alps and in the Jurassic Alb mountains.