Agrionympha karoo Agrionympha karoo Agrionympha karoo is a species of moth belonging to the Micropterigidae family. It was described by George W. Gibbs and Niels P. Kristensen in 2011. It is found in South Africa, where it is known only from the "Eastern Cape". It lives amongst "Adiantum" species and other ferns on rocky banks of streams where seepage maintains very limited growth of thallose liverworts and mosses in an otherwise hot and arid environment. The length of the forewings is about 2.5 mm for males 2.6 mm for females. The species is named after the semi-arid region in which it occurs,
Karoo which is Afrikaans for Little Karoo. The Great Karoo straddles the 30° S parallel on the west of the continent, in a similar position to other semidesert areas on earth, north and south of the equator. It is furthermore in the rainfall shadow of the Cape Fold Mountains along the western coastline. The western "Lower Karoo" (the Tankwa Karoo and Moordenaarskaroo) contain remnants of the Cape Fold Mountains (e.g. the Witteberg and Anysberg Mountains) which give it a moderate hilly appearance, but further east, the Lower Karoo becomes a monotonously flat plain. The "Upper Karoo" has been intruded by dolerite