The caterpillar is green with a yellow head and prothorax, and has sparse stiff hairs.

drawing by Harold Maxwell-Lefroy, listed as Nymphula depunctalis,
Indian Insect Life: a Manual of the Insects of the Plains, 1909, Plate XLIX, fig. 5,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by NCSU Libraries.

The caterpillar lives in a case made from a rolled-up rice leaf.

drawing by Harold Maxwell-Lefroy, listed as Nymphula depunctalis,
Indian Insect Life: a Manual of the Insects of the Plains, 1909, Plate XLIX, fig. 3,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by NCSU Libraries.

The caterpillar pupates in its case.

(Specimen: courtesy of The Australian Museum)

The adult moths have semi-transparent wings, with faint brown zig-zag lines across them. Each fore wing has two black comma-shaped marks, one double and one single. The moths have a wingspan of about 2 cms.

(Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, Kuranda, Queensland)

The species is found around the world in the southern tropics, including:

and in Australia in:

Further reading :

Achille Guenée,
Deltoïdes et Pyralites,
in Boisduval & Guenée:
Histoire Naturelle des Insectes; Spécies Général des Lépidoptères,
Volume 9, Part 8 (1854), p. 276, No. 269.

Peter Hendry,
The Night of the Crambidae,
Butterfly and Other Invertebrates Club Newslettter,
Issue 49 (June 2008), pp. 26-29.

Philipp C. Zeller,
Lepidoptera Microptera quae J.A. Wahlberg in Caffrorum terra collegit,
Stockholm : Norstedt (1852).

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(updated 5 February 2010, 24 March 2017, 19 August 2020)