About Idaea muricata (Hufnagel, 1767)
Idaea muricata (Hufnagel, 1767) has purple base wing colour. The midfield of its forewing holds two yellow spots, with a third yellow spot at the wing base. The species' wing pattern is variable: the two midfield spots may be absent, enlarged, or fused together. The interior crossline is marked by a subtle change in colour. The outer crossline is blue-violet, slightly wavy, and very distinct. It is bordered by a narrow, jagged band of purple colour. The wing margin and fringes are yellow. The hindwing has a large yellow discal spot, and its midfield is covered in small fine yellow spots. The larva of Idaea muricata is long and thin, grey-brown with a white stripe along its side. This species is distributed across western, central, and eastern Europe. In the north, its range reaches the southern British Isles, southern Scandinavia, and southern Finland. It is present in the western Spanish Pyrenees, Corsica, and northern Italy, with occasional sightings in southern Italy. It occurs across the Balkan Peninsula as far south as Bulgaria and Albania, and reaches the foothills of the Caucasus range in the south. East of the Urals, its range extends to Kunashir in the Kurile Islands, the northeastern tip of Hokkaidō in Japan (this population is the subspecies Idaea muricata proutiana (Bryk, 1942)), as well as to Korea and Sichuan, China (the taxon I. muricata minor (Sterneck, 1927)).
