(Photo: courtesy of Peter Hendry, Gin Gin, Queensland)

The tentacles are red with black ends and yellow tips.

male
(Photo: courtesy of Peter Hendry, Gin Gin, Queensland)

The adult male moths are yellow or pale brown with several dark lines across each wing. The male moths are smaller than the females, typically with a wingspan of about 3 cms.

female
(Photo: courtesy of Peter Hendry, Gin Gin, Queensland)

The females are grey with mottled white patches. The wings of the moths of both sexes have unusual shapes. The forewings have concave hind margins. The hindwings each look as though bites have been taken out of the costa and margin at the wingtip, and another at the tornus. The females also appear to have ragged (but symmetric) nibbles out of the forewing margins. The female moths are larger than the males, typically with a wingspan of about 4 cms. The moths of both sexes are inclined to roll their wings up in their resting posture.

female, underside
(Photo: courtesy of Olga Schmidt, Queensland Museum, listed as Orsonoba diplodonta)

The species occurs in Australia in

male
(Photo: courtesy of Peter Hendry, Gin Gin, Queensland)

Further reading :

Peter Hendry & John Moss,
Life history notes on the moth Gonodontis luteola (Turner, 1904) (Lepidoptera : Geometridae) and Speiredonia spectans (Guenée, 1852) (Lepidoptera : Noctuidae),
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 61 (June 2011), pp. 10-13.

Peter Hendry,
Gonodontis luteola,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 61 (June 2011), p. 27,

Olga Schmidt,
An annotated and illustrated list of the primary type specimens of geometrid moths deposited in the Queensland Museum (Australia, Brisbane),
Spixiana,
Volume 5, Part 1 (2012), pp. 79-100, Figs. 19 a,b.

A. Jefferis Turner,
New Australian Lepidoptera...with synonomic notes and other notes,
Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia,
Volume 28 (1904), pp. 234-235.

previous caterpillar

Australian butterflies

Australian Lepidoptera

Australian moths

next caterpillar

(written 10 February 2014, updated 21 May 2015, 2 June 2020)