Polia nebulosa
species of insect
Polia nebulosa, the grey arches, is a moth of the family Noctuidae. The species was first described by Johann Siegfried Hufnagel in 1766. It is found in temperate Europe and Asia up to eastern Asia and Japan. It is not present in northernmost Fennoscandia and the southern parts of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy and Greece. In the Alps it is found at heights up to 1,600 meters.
Technical description and variation
The wingspan is 41–52 mm. Forewing white tinged with brownish grey; stigmata as in Polia advena and Polia tincta; submarginal line preceded by black wedge-shaped marks, with one more conspicuous before the indentation of submedian fold; hindwing dull whitish, with, cellspot, veins, and a broad marginal border smoky fuscous; — ab. pallida Tutt represents a very white form taken in Scotland, with many of the dark transverse markings obsolete; — bimaculosa Esp. is the darker grey form with blacker markings; — robsoni Collins is a strong melanic form from Cheshire in the west of England only; there are also two aberrations from East Asia, — asiatica Stgr. (= lama Stgr.) being dull grey and smaller than typical, while askolda Oberth.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Polia nebulosa” as species of insect. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of insect. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q914065. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1766.
A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Polia nebulosa” 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.