Eudocima jordani (Holland, 1900)
Jordan's Fruit Piercing Moth
(previously known as Ophideres jordani)
CALPINAE,   EREBIDAE,   NOCTUOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Eudocima jordani
male
Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, from
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art

The Caterpillars of this species feed on:

  • Snake Vine ( Tinospora smilacina, MENISPERMACEAE ).

    Eudocima jordani
    male
    (Photo: courtesy of Graeme Cocks, Townsville, Queensland)

    The male moths of this species have brown forewings with a subtle pattern, and bright orange hindwings that have broad black margins and a large black spot in the middle. The wings have scalloped margins, and the forewings have a concave hind margin. The abdomen is orange. The wingspan is about 7 cms.

    The females are similar except they have a broad yellow diagonal band across each forwing.

    Eudocima jordani
    male
    (Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, Kuranda, Queensland)

    The adult moths are a commercial pest: damaging fruit by piercing the skin to suck juice.

    Control of the moths may be possible using:

  • green-yellow Orchard lighting systems,
  • netting trees and bagging fruits, and
  • the wasp Euplectrus melanocephalus ( EULOPHIDAE ).

    The moth has been found in

  • Maluku Islands, and
  • New Guinea,

    and in Australia in

  • Queensland.


    Further reading :

    Ian F.B. Common,
    Moths of Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1990, pl. 20.4, p. 449.

    William Jacob Holland,
    The Lepidoptera of Buru: Part II: Heterocera,
    Novitates Zoologicae,
    Volume 7 (1900) p. 570, No. 257.

    Buck Richardson,
    Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
    LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 137.


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    (updated 17 October 2011, 10 August 2021)