Mataeomera coccophaga (Meyrick, 1887) Brown Scale-moth (erroneously listed as Thalpochares cocciphaga, Hampson, 1910) ACONTIINAE,   NOCTUIDAE,   NOCTUOIDEA

Don Herbison-Evans (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley

(Photo: courtesy of Gavin Tomkinson, Cooroy, Queensland)

The Caterpillar of this species is carnivorous.
The caterpillar is white with a dark brown head, and a brown split collar.

(Photo: courtesy of Gavin Tomkinson, Cooroy, Queensland)

The caterpillar feeds on Scale Insects on Gum Trees ( COCCIDAE ). The caterpillar carries a shield on its back covered in the skins of dead Scale Insect larvae.

cocoon
(Photo: courtesy of Donna Tomkinson, Cooroy, Queensland)

The caterpillar pupates in a cocoon also covered with skins of dead Scale Insect larvae.

(Photo: courtesy of BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

The adult moth has brown forewings with variable patterns including pale and dark patches separated by three pale wandering lines across each wing, and often with a submarginal arc of dark spots, and a pale trapezium on the costa near the wingtip.

(Photo: courtesy of Donna Tomkinson, Cooroy, Queensland)

The wingspan is about 2 cms.

(Photo: courtesy of Donna Tomkinson, Cooroy, Queensland)

The species has been found in Australia in

Western Australia.

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Olwyn Smiley, Melbourne, Victoria)

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Further reading :

George Francis Hampson,
Catalogue of Noctuidae in the British Museum,
Catalogue of Lepidoptera Phalaenae in the British Museum,
Volume 10 (1910), p. 180, No. 5264.

Edward Meyrick,
Descriptions of new Lepidoptera,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Series 2, Volume 1, Part 4 (1887), pp. 1037-1038.

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(written 2 February 2018, updated 4 June 2023)