(Photo: courtesy of Graeme Cocks, Townsville, Queensland)

The adult moth is brown with various markings including a double dark spot near the centre of each forewing. The hindwings are brown, fading slightly towards the bases. The wingspan is about 3 cms.

(Specimen: courtesy of the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)

The moth is preyed on by a Bolas Spider : Ordgarius magnificus (ARANEIDAE), which emits a pheromone similar to that of the female moth to attract male moths within range of a sticky ball of glue which the spider swings on a length of silk.

male, listed as Agrotis hypochalcis
Illustration 29 on Plate LXIX of Hampson's Noctuidae of the British Museum, 1903-1913.
(Courtesy of Joe Kunkel, University of Massachusetts)

The species occurs in

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, p. 60.

Peter B. McQuillan, Jan A. Forrest, David Keane, & Roger Grund,
Caterpillars, moths, and their plants of Southern Australia,
Butterfly Conservation South Australia Inc., Adelaide (2019), p. 164.

Peter Marriott & Marilyn Hewish,
Moths of Victoria - Part 9,
Cutworms and Allies - NOCTUOIDEA (C),
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2020, pp. 14-15.

A. Jefferis Turner,
New Genera and Species of Lepidoptera belonging to the Family Noctuidae,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Volume 27 No.1 (1902), p. 80.

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(updated 15 April 2013, 20 December 2020, 7 April 2022)