| (previously known as Goniobela stockeri) CHEZALA GOUP OECOPHORINAE, OECOPHORIDAE, GELECHIOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group,
Centre for Biodiversity Genomics,
University of Guelph)
This Caterpillar feeds on the droppings of Koalas. The caterpillar spends its whole life in a single dropping, On maturity, it pupates in a cocoon inside its dropping, but bores an exit hole in the surface of the dropping which it plugs with one end of the pupa.
The adult moth has brown forewings, each with a dark line along the costa and along the hind margin. The hindwings are off-white.
The species was first described in 1994, and named after a senior executive in the CSIRO: Dr John Stocker. A picture of the moth is now used on the labels of Stocker's Wines.
The species has been found in
Further reading :
Ian F.B. Common,
Oecophorine Genera of Australia II:
The Chezala, Philobota and Eulechria groups (Lepidoptera: Oecophoridae),
Monographs on Australian Lepidoptera Volume 5,
CSIRO Publishing, 1997, pp. 131, 133, 134.
Ian F.B. Common & Marianne Horak,
Four new species of Telanepsia Turner (Lepidoptera: Oecophoridae)
with larvae feeding on koala and possum scats,
Invertebrate Taxonomy,
Volume 8 (1994), pp. 809-828.
Paul Zborowski & Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australian Moths,
CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 71.
 caterpillar |  butterflies |  Lepidoptera |  moths |  caterpillar |
(updated 1 November 2012, 17 March 2015, 6 July 2021)