Episema glaucina (Esper, 1789)

Host plants:
The caterpillars live on Muscari (grape hyacinth) and Anthericum (grass lily).

Habitat:
Episema glaucina inhabits extensive meadows, nutrient-poor grasslands, steppe-slopes, open scrub and similar locations of the host plant.

Life cycle:
The young caterpillar hibernates. I found them half or fully-grown in late April in the Valais in a Muscari stock, where they were digged a few millimeters to centimeters in the soil and were betrayed only by a few bitten stems. The caterpillar rests then as prepupa until late summer. Thus the moths fly from mid-August to mid-October. The rule is that each hotter and low-lying the locality, the later the time of flight. Pupation is therefore probably linked to the occurrence of the first cool nights in late summer or autumn.

Endangerment: endangered

Endangerment factors:
Episema glaucina has already suffered massive losses especially north of the Alps by the decline of extensive habitat.

Remarks:
The distribution extends from Morocco across Southern and Central Europe to Western Asia.