It sometimes can become a pest on pastures.

(Specimen: courtesy of the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)

The adult moth has forewings with brown and silvery white longitudinal stripes. The hindwings are silky and buff coloured. However, when the moth is holding onto a vertical blade of grass with its wings wrapped around its body, the shiny stripes make a good camouflage. The moth has a wing span of about 3 cms.

The species is found over most of Australia, including

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, pl. 8.34, pp. 52, 80, 351.

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), pp. 82-83.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 28.

Edward Donovan,
General Illustration of Entomology,
An Epitome of the Natural History of the Insects of New Holland, New Zealand, New Guinea, Otaheite and other Islands in the Indian, Southern and Pacific Oceans,
London (1805), Part 1, p. 180, and also Plate on p. 178.

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(updated 12 January 2012, 22 May 2021)