Oidaematophorus lithodactyla, also known as the dusky plume, is a moth of the family Pterophoridae found from Europe to Asia Minor and Japan. It was first described by German lepidopterist, Georg Friedrich Treitschke in 1833.
The wingspan is 26-.The middle tibiae are thickened with scales in the middle and at the apex. The forewings are pale brown, irregularly mixed with grey-whitish and irrorated with black. There is a blackish subcrescentic posteriorly white-edged mark before the fissure and an elongate blackish mark on costa near beyond it and some blackish marginal dots towards the apex. The cilia are dark grey, somewhat whitish-mixed. The hindwings are rather dark fuscous with a darker dot at apex of segments.[1] Diagnostic – a greyish forewing with an angled darker marking just inside the cleft.
Adults are on wing in July and August in western, central and northeastern Europe.[2]
The larvae feed on common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica) and ploughman's-spikenard (Inula conyza). They initially feed in the shoots, but later feed on the leaves.[3] [4]
On 2 June 1984, larvae were found feeding on willowleaf yellowhead (Inula salicina), in Oslo.[5]