Androchela milvaria

Androchela milvaria (Guenée, 1857)
Four-spot Cape-moth
(also known as Amelora milvaria)
DIPTYCHINI, ENNOMINAE, GEOMETRIDAE, GEOMETROIDEA

Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Cathy Byrne & Stella Crossley

early instars, magnified
(Photo: copyright Cathy Byrne)

Early instars of these Caterpillars are plain brown, and only have one pair of abdominal prolegs plus the anal clasper pair, so move like loopers. When stationary, they usually stick out straight like an extension of the stem they are standing on.

middle instar
(Photo: courtesy of Cath Busby, Aranda Bushland, Australian Capital Territory)

Middle instars develop dark lines, and a pair of dark patches on the top of the head.

later instar
(Photo: courtesy of Cath Busby, Aranda Bushland, Australian Capital Territory)

Photo: courtesy of Steve Williams, Moths of Victoria: Part 5

Later still: they become green with a broad red dorsal stripe containing some pale spots, and a broken pale yellow stripe along each side. The claspers and true legs become red.

last instar
(Photo: courtesy of Cath Busby, Aranda Bushland, Australian Capital Territory)

In the last instar: the caterpillars become reddish brown with a broad red dorsal stripe.

The caterpillars feed on plants from a wide variety of families, including :

ASTERACEAE,

FABACEAE,

MIMOSACEAE,

MYRTACEAE, and

PROTEACEAE.

caterpillar
forming its cocoon

naked pupa extracted
from inside a cocoon

Photos: courtesy of Steve Williams, Moths of Victoria: Part 5

The caterpillar pupates in a cocoon in the soil.

(Photo: copyright Cathy Byrne)

The adult moths are brown with a submarginal arc of dark spots and a larger dark mark near the centre of each wing. The forewings have slightly hooked wingtips. The hindwings are greyer, darkening toward the margins, each with the black central mark. the wingspan is about 4 cms.

(Photo: courtesy of Cathy Powers, Moorabool, Victoria)

Some specimens have a very broad dark band across the middle of each forewing.

female, drawing by Achille Guenée, listed as Scodiona milvaria,
Uranides et Phalénites, in Boisduval & Guenée:
Histoire naturelle des insectes; spécies général des lépidoptères,
Volume 9, Part 10 (1858), Plate 8, fig. 8,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The eggs are laid in arrays, and are rounded cubes. Initially they are white, later developing red spots as hatching approaches.

eggs, magnified
(Photo: copyright Cathy Byrne)

The species has been found in

South Australia, and

undersides of wings
(Photo: courtesy of Marilyn Hewish, Moths of Victoria: Part 5)

Further reading :

Cathy Byrne,
Characterisation of the Australian Nacophorini and a Phylogeny for the Geometridae from Molecular and Morphological Data,
Ph.D. thesis, University of Tasmania, 2003.

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, fig. 34.20, p. 365.

Achille Guenée,
Uranides et Phalénites,
in Boisduval & Guenée:
Histoire naturelle des insectes; spécies général des lépidoptères,
Volume 9, Part 10 (1858), p. 140, No. 1148, and also Plate 8, fig. 8.

Marilyn Hewish,
Moths of Victoria: Part 5 - Satin Moths and Allies - GEOMETROIDEA (A),
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2014, pp. 12-13.

Peter B. McQuillan,
The Tasmanian Geometrid Moths Associated with the Genus Amelora auctorum (Lepidoptera : Geometridae : Ennomina) (sic),
Invertebrate Taxonomy,
Volume 10, Number 3 (1996), pp. 433-506.

Peter B. McQuillan,
An overview of the Tasmanian geometrid moth fauna (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) and its conservation status,
Journal of Insect Conservation,
Volume 8 (2004), Parts 2-3, pp. 209-220.

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), p. 131.

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(updated 20 July 2010, 4 April 2025)