![]() | Pale Wine Moth OENOCHROMINAE, GEOMETRIDAE, GEOMETROIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of S. Williams,
Moths of Victoria: Part 4)
This Caterpillar is initially black with white rings at the joints between the segments. Later, the caterpillar becomes brown and slender, with a pair of little floppy horns on the first segment of the abdomen.
The caterpillars feed on various PROTEACEAE.
In its resting pose, the caterpillar stands at an angle to the stem it is on, and also holds its head and thorax at an angle to its main body, thus looking like a bent twig.
The adult moths of this species have pale brown wings, each dark-edged yellow line running from wingtip to the middle of the hind margin. The forewings each have some dark brown spots particularly along the costa, and including a prominent circular one near the centre of the costa. There is often a dark mark just in the recurve of the forewing margin at each forewing wingtip. In the resting posture of the moth, the yellow hindwing lines connect to those of the forewings. The wingspan is about 4 cms.
The species is found across most of Australia, including:
Further reading :
Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, fig. 36.7, pl. 26.11, p. 368.
Peter Hendry,
A Night at Ray's,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 57 (June 2010), pp. 30-32.
Peter Marriott,
Moths of Victoria: Part 4,
Emeralds and Allies - GEOMETROIDEA (B),
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2013, pp. 10-11.
William Warren,
New species and genera of the families Thyrididae, Uraniidae, Epiplemidae,
and Geometridae from the Old-World Regions,
Novitates Zoologicae,
Volume 5 (1898), p. 231, No. 23.
![]() caterpillar | ![]() butterflies | ![]() Lepidoptera | ![]() moths | ![]() caterpillar |
(updated 16 June 2013, 23 July 2024)