Dasygaster padockina (Le Guillou, 1841)
Tasmanian Cutworm
 (one synonym : Mamestra confundens Walker, 1869)
HADENINAE,   NOCTUIDAE,   NOCTUOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Dasygaster padockina
(Photo: courtesy of Merlin Crossley, Melbourne, Victoria)

This Caterpillar is brown above and greyish brown below. A cream lateral line extends onto the orange head capsule. The front of the head capsule is marked with vertical brown lines.

Dasygaster padockina
(Photo: courtesy of Daniel Montes, McKellar, Australian Capital Territory)

Each proleg is marked by a small black line.

Dasygaster padockina
(Photo: courtesy of Daniel Montes, McKellar, Australian Capital Territory)

The caterpillar hides by day at the soil surface, and feeds nocturnally on :

  • Grass (POACEAE).

    Dasygaster padockina
    pupa
    (Photo: courtesy of Daniel Montes, McKellar, Australian Capital Territory)

    The caterpillar pupates in the soil. Caterpillars which pupated in June in Melbourne emerged as adults the following January.

    Dasygaster padockina
    (Photo: courtesy of Merlin Crossley, Melbourne, Victoria)

    The adult moth has brown forewings with variable off-white, dark brown, and sometimes reddish markings. In its natural posture: pairs of dark marks on the hind margins of the forewings are aligned to show a sort of dumbbell shape.

    Dasygaster padockina
    (Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

    The hindwings are brown. The wingspan is about 3 cms.

    Dasygaster padockina
    (Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

    The species occurs in:

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


    male, drawing by Achille Guenée, Noctuélites, listed as Dasygaster hollandiae    ,
    Histoire Naturelle des Insectes; Spécies Général des Lépidoptères,
    Volume 9, Part 5 (1852), Plate 6, fig. 11,
    Image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

    Further reading :

    Ian F.B. Common,
    Moths of Australia,
    Melbourne University Press, 1990, fig. 49.20, pp. 65, 466.

    Elie Jean Francois Le Guillou,
    Description de huit espèces de Lépidoptères découvertes pendant le voyage de la Zélee,
    Revue Zoologique par la Societe Cuvierienne,
    Paris, 1841, p. 257, No. 5.

    Peter Marriott & Marilyn Hewish,
    Moths of Victoria - Part 9,
    Cutworms and Allies - NOCTUOIDEA (C)    ,
    Entomological Society of Victoria, 2020, pp. 24-27.

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    (updated 12 April 2011, 6 November 2022)