Maturation of the caterpillar was observed in one instance to take four years.

The adult moths have grey forewings, each with a black spot near the middle, and often other dark markings. The hindwings are plain and often darker than the forewings. The wingspan can reach 27 cms.

The females have been noted as the heaviest Australian insect. The vital statistics of Ross' specimen are:

Further reading:

Walter Wilson Froggatt,
Wood moths: with some account of their life-histories,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Series 2, Volume 19, Part 2 (1894) p. 380.

Charles Oberthür,
Contribution a l'étude des grands Lépidoptères d'Australie,
Études de lépidoptérologie comparée,
Fascicule XI bis (1916), p. 47 (footnote).

Lionel Walter Rothschild & H.E. Karl Jordan,
On some new Lepidoptera from the East,
Novitates Zoologicae,
Volume 6 (1899), pp. 443-444, No. 27.

Paul Zborowski & Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australan Moths,
CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 164.

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(written 5 February 2015, updated 16 March 2023)