Leucogonia ekeikei

Leucogonia ekeikei (Bethune-Baker, 1906)
(previously known as Zalissa ekeikei)
AGARISTINAE, NOCTUIDAE, NOCTUOIDEA

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

Leucogonia ekeikei
Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, from
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art

The adult moths of this species have brown forewings with broad muddled band along the outer and hind margins. The hindwings have a black outer half, and a yellow basal half. The head and thorax are black with a dorsal stripe of pale brown scales. The abdomen is yellow with a black dorsal stripe. The wingspan is about 4 cms.

(Photo: courtesy of Axel Hausmann, SNSB, Zoologische Staatssammlung Muenchen)

In its natural posture the forelegs are stretched out in front of the body, showing the black furry femurs and tibias, and the naked tarsi. The wings are closed giving the moth a tetrahedral shape.

The species is found in

New Guinea

and also in Australia in

Queensland.

Further reading :

George Thomas Bethune-Baker,
New Noctuidae from British New Guinea,
Novitates Zoologicae,
Volume 13 (1906), p. 211, No. 53.

Buck Richardson,
Mothology,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2008, p. 21.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 122.

Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australian Moths,
CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 190.