Amelora sparsularia (Guenée, 1857)
 (one synonym : Amelora cyclocentra Turner, 1926)
DIPTYCHINI,   ENNOMINAE,   GEOMETRIDAE,   GEOMETROIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Cathy Byrne & Stella Crossley


(Photo: copyright Cathy Byrne)

These Caterpillars are brown with a pale band along each side and a dark mark on the back of each abdominal segment. The body has short sparse black hairs. The head has black speckles. The caterpillars feed on a wide variety of low-growing dicotyledonous herbs.


male
(Photo: copyright Cathy Byrne)

The adult moths are buff coloured with a pattern of brown spots and speckles, including a larger elliptical outline near the center of each forewing. The wingspan is about 4 cms.


female
(Photo: courtesy of Elaine McDonald, Nicholls Rivulet, Tamania)

The eggs are laid unattached, and are barrel-shaped with microscopic ridges. Their diameter is about 0.7 mm. Initially they are white, later developing red spots, then turning grey as hatching approaches.


eggs, magnified
(Photo: copyright Cathy Byrne)

The species has usually been found at high altitude (above 1000 metres) in

  • New South Wales,
  • Victoria,
  • Tasmania, and
  • South Australia.


    male, drawing by Achille Guenée, listed as Panagra sparsularia    ,
    Uranides et Phalénites, in Boisduval & Guenée:
    Histoire naturelle des insectes; spécies général des lépidoptères,
    Volume 9, Part 10 (1858), Plate 12, fig. 4,
    image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

    Further reading :

    Achille Guenée,
    Uranides et Phalénites,
    in Boisduval & Guenée:
    Histoire naturelle des insectes; spécies général des lépidoptères,
    Volume 9, Part 10 (1858), p. 131, No. 1132, and also Plate 12, fig. 4.

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

    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.

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    (updated 24 July 2013, 26 February 2021)