| (one synonym : Hadena spargens Walker, 1865) ACRONICTINAE, NOCTUIDAE, NOCTUOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: Don Herbison-Evans, Bundaberg, Queensland)
|
| (one synonym : Hadena spargens Walker, 1865) ACRONICTINAE, NOCTUIDAE, NOCTUOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: Don Herbison-Evans, Bundaberg, Queensland)
These young caterpillars are smooth-skinned and green in early instars, with a brown head.
Later instars develop a purple herring-bone pattern with a black head. Later still, they turn brown with a thin wavy white line along each side, and white spots.
Specimens have been found feeding on the leaves of various plants in ASTERACEAE including :
The caterpillars grow to a length of about 4 cms.
The caterpillars burrow into the soil to pupate, producing a pretty green and brown banded chrysalis.
The chrysalis produces this really boring moth: it is brown with an indistinct complex pattern on its wings. It has a wingspan of about 4 cms.
The species occurs throughout south-east Asia and the south Pacific, including :
as well as in Australia in
Further reading :
Francis Walker,
Catalogue of Lepidoptera Heterocera,
List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum,
Part 32, Supplement 2 (1865), p. 684.
and also
Part 33, Supplement 3 (1865), pp. 739-740.
 caterpillar |  butterflies |  Lepidoptera |  moths |  caterpillar |
(updated 11 April 2013, 28 August 2031)