female
(Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, Kuranda, Queensland)

The female adult moth has brown forewings, each with a darker broad irregular band along the margin, a dark spot near the middle, and a black mark about halfway along the costa.

male
(Photo: courtesy of Paul Kay, Western Australia)

The male adult moth has greenish forewings, each with a pattern similar to that of the female

female
(Photo: courtesy of Paul Kay, Western Australia)

The hindwings of both sexes are yellow, each having a broad but broken dark submarginal band. The wingspan is about 7 cms.

male, drawing by Pieter Cramer, listed as Phalaena tirhaca,
Uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen,
Amsterdam Baalde, Volume 2 (1777), Plate CLXXII, fig. E,
Image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The species has been found in :

as well as in Australia in

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Paul Kay, Western Australia)

Further reading :

Pieter Cramer,
Description de Papillons Exotiques,
Uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen,
Amsterdam Baalde, Volume 2 (1777), p. 116, and also Plate 172, fig. E.

Peter Marriott,
Moths of Victoria - Part 8,
Night Moths and Allies - NOCTUOIDEA(B),
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2017, pp. 22-23.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 146.

Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australian Moths, CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 23.

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(updated 26 October 2011, 1 November 2025)