Grammodes ocellata Tepper, 1890
 (one synonym : Grammodes excellens Lucas, 1892)
Large-eyed Box-Owlet
EREBINAE,   EREBIDAE,   NOCTUOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley


(Photo: courtesy of Scott Gavins, Fraser Coast, Queensland)

The adult moths are dark brown usually with two white bars across each forewing, and one across each hindwing. The forewings often each have an eye-spot at the tornus.

The adults moths seem to have a preference for facing downwards, perhaps looking like a monster with a wide open mouth? The moths have a wingspan of about 4 cms.


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

The species has been found in

  • New Zealand,

    as well as in Australia in

  • Western Australia,
  • Northern Territory,
  • Queensland,
  • New South Wales,
  • Australian Capital Territory,
  • Victoria, and
  • South Australia.

    Grammodes ocellata
    male, drawing by George Francis Hampson,    ,
    Catalogue of Lepidoptera Phalænæ in the British Museum,
    Noctuidæ, Volume XII (1913), Plate CCXXII, figure 5,
    image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University.

    Further reading :

    Peter Hendry,
    The genus Grammodes (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae; EREBINAE),
    Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
    Metamorphosis Australia,
    Issue 62 (September 2011), pp. 19-21.

    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. 157.

    Peter Marriott,
    Moths of Victoria - Part 8,
    Night Moths and Allies - NOCTUOIDEA(B)    ,
    Entomological Society of Victoria, 2017, pp. 20-21.

    Buck Richardson,
    Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
    LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 139.

    Johann Gottlieb Otto Tepper,
    Part II Lepidoptera, or butterflies and moths of Adelaide,
    Common native insects of South Australia,
    Adelaide, 1890, p. 46.

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    (updated 13 April 2013, 10 April 2017, 7 November 2019, 24 August 2020)