Heliocheilus pallida (Butler, 1886)
(one synonym : Heliocheilus osmidus Swinhoe, 1901)
HELIOTHINAE,   NOCTUIDAE,   NOCTUOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Heliocheilus pallida
Photo: courtesy of Marcus Matthews,
Heliothine Moths of Australia: A Guide to Pest Bollworms and Related Noctuid Groups

This Caterpillar is dark green with a broad pale line along the back, bisected by a white-edged thin dark line, and edged with a thin pale line along each side. A broad pale line runs along each side above the legs.

Heliocheilus pallida
Photo: courtesy of Marcus Matthews,
Heliothine Moths of Australia: A Guide to Pest Bollworms and Related Noctuid Groups

This caterpillar has been found feeding in the seedhead of

  • Tassel Bluestem ( Dichanthium tenuiculum, POACEAE ).

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

    The adult moth has off-white or pale brown forewings sometimes each with one or more white diagonal stripes, and buff hindwings sometimes with darker margins. The wingspan is about 2.5 cms.

    This species has been taken in

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

    Heliocheilus pallida
    male, drawing by George F. Hampson, listed as Melicleptria osmida
    ,
    Catalogue of the Noctuidæ in the Collection of the British Museum,
    Volume IV (1903), Plate LVII, fig. 17,
    image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.


    Further reading :

    Arthur G. Butler,
    Descriptions of 21 new genera and 103 new species of Lepidoptera Heterocera from the Australian region,
    Transactions of the Entomological Society of London,
    1886, Part 4, p. 406, No. 42.

    George F. Hampson,
    Catalogue of the Noctuidae in the Collection of the British Museum,
    Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalaenae in the British Museum,
    Volume 4 (1903), pp. 99-100, and also Plate 17, fig. 17.

    Marcus Matthews,
    Heliothine Moths of Australia:
    A Guide to Pest Bollworms and Related Noctuid Groups,
    CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 1999, pp. 16, 84-86, 173-174, 199, Plates 10, 14, 18, 22.

    Charles Swinhoe,
    New and little known moths from India and Australia,
    The Annals and Magazine of Natural History,
    Series 7, Volume 8 (1901), p. 126.


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    (updated 8 August 2011, 25 August 2017, 12 April 2021)