Monopis laevigella
species of insect
Monopis laevigella, the skin moth, is a species of tineoid moth. It belongs to the fungus moth family (Tineidae), and therein to the nominate subfamily Tineinae. It is (under its junior synonym Tinea rusticella) the type species of the genus Monopis and its junior objective synonym Hyalospila. As with the common clothes moth (Tineola bisselliella), earlier authors frequently misapplied the name Tinea vestianella to the present species.
It is not uncommon all across western Palearctic as well as in North America. It has not been recorded in Slovenia yet, but given that it occurs in all neighboring countries, it probably has simply been overlooked. Its absence from some Mediterranean islands may be genuine however.
Description and ecology
The adults of this small moth have a wingspan of 13–20 mm. On the wing around May to September (depending on the location), they are nocturnal and come out at dusk. They have dark brown forewings with a white fringe and the translucent center spot characteristic for the genus Monopis, but lack the white markings adjacent to it found in many congeners.
“Monopis laevigella” enters the record as species of insect. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Monopis, laevigella and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 May 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3088705. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Monopis laevigella” 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.