male

female
(Photos: courtesy of Paul Kay, Queensland)

The adult moths are reddish-brown, with a mark like a comma on each forewing, and a broad black submarginal band on each hindwing. The undersides are plain brown. The wingspan is can reach over 9 cms.

female, drawing by Felder & Rogenhofer, listed as Lagoptera regia,
Reise der Osterreichischen Fregatte Novara,
Band 2, Abtheilung 2 (5) (1875), Plate CXVI, fig. 8,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The species has been found as a number of subspecies across the south Pacific including

and as subspecies regia TP Lucas, 1894, in Australia in

male, drawing by George Francis Hampson, listed as Lagoptera regia,
Catalogue of Lepidoptera Phalænæ in the British Museum,
Noctuidæ, Volume XII (1913), Plate CCXIII, figure 6,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University.

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Paul Kay, Queensland)

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1990, pl. 21.4, p. 454.

Rudolf Felder & Alois F. Rogenhofer,
Zoologischer Theil: Lepidoptera,
Reise der Osterreichischen Fregatte Novara,
Band 2, Abtheilung 2 (5) (1875), p. 12, and also Plate 116, fig. 8.

Thomas P. Lucas,
Descriptions of new Australian Lepidoptera, with additional Localities for known Species,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Series 2, Volume 8, Part 2 (1894), pp. 151-152.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 156.

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(updated 24 June 2011, 1 November 2025)