![]() | Hairy Mary (one synonym : Darala pinguis Walker, 1865) ANTHELINAE, ANTHELIDAE, BOMBYCOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of
Mick Ferris, Yarrow, New South Wales)
The Caterpillars of this species are dark brown, with tufts of long white hairs, and with a pair of white marks on the meta-thorax.
The caterpillars mainly seem to feed on the leaves of:
The caterpillars have also been found on plants in other families, including
The caterpillars have denser shorter black hairs around the head and thorax, and on the final abdominal segments, and a prominent pair of white hair pencils behind the thorax.
The caterpillars grow to a length of about 7 cms.
The caterpillars pupate in a buff papery double-walled cocoon among dead leaves or under a log.
The adult moths vary in colour from yellow to brown, with subbasal and submarginal zig-zag arcs, and often have a brown-edged yellow midline across each wing. The forewings each have two dark spots, and the hindwings one. The females have threadlike antennae, a bulbous abdomen, pointed forewing tips, and can have wingspans up to 9 cms. The males are somewhat smaller, have feathery antennae, and have rounded forewing tips.
The species is found mainly in the coastal areas of Australia, including:
eggs
(Photo: courtesy of the
Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)
This caterpillar begins life as one of a row of egg-shaped off-white eggs, each with a length of about 1 mm.
Further reading :
Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, pl. 28.5, p. 395.
Peter Hendry,
The Anthelidae,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 50 (September 2008), pp. 27-31.
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. 96.
Peter Marriott,
Moths of Victoria - Part 1,
Silk Moths and Allies - BOMBYCOIDEA,
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2008, pp. 22-23.
Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 11.
Francis Walker,
Catalogue of Lepidoptera Heterocera,
List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum,
Part 4 (1855), pp. 890-891, No. 6.
Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australian Moths,
CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 156.
![]() caterpillar | ![]() butterflies | ![]() Lepidoptera | ![]() moths | ![]() caterpillar |
(updated 24 April 2013, 2 January 2025)