Micropterix tunbergella
species of insect
Micropterix tunbergella is a moth of the family Micropterigidae found in most of Europe. The moths are very small and can be found feeding on the pollen of hawthorn, oak and sycamore. The larva and pupa are unknown. The moth was described Johan Christian Fabricius in 1787.
Taxonomy
The moth was first described from a specimen found in Germany, by the Danish zoologist, Johan Christian Fabricius in 1787. He named it Tinea tunbergella. Tinea – a ″gnawing worm″, was first used by the father of modern taxonomy Carl Linnaeus, in his Systema Naturae published in 1758 and was applied to various larvae, including those Lepidoptera which ruined clothing. Micropterix was raised by Jacob Hübner and the name comes from the small size of the adult; Mikros – ″little″ and pterux – ″a wing″. The specific part of the name tunbergella is after the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg (1743–1828).
Description
The wingspan is 8–11 millimetres (0.31–0.43 in).
The public source identifies “Micropterix tunbergella” as species of insect. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Micropterix, tunbergella and species.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1348230. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1787, 1758, 1743 and 1828.
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This entry incorporates text from “Micropterix tunbergella” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.