The mouth of the tunnel becomes covered in frass.

empty pupal shells protruding from tunnels
(Photo: courtesy of Axel Kallies, Moths of Victoria: Part 6)

The caterpillars pupate in their tunnels. Before the adult moth emerges from the pupa, the pupa wriggles to be partly out of its tunnel.

Female
(Photo: courtesy of Axel Kallies, Moths of Victoria: Part 6)

The female adult moths have green forewings, each with some variable brown markings. The females have orange hind wings. The female moths have a wingspan of up to 7 cms.

Male
(Photo: courtesy of Ethan Beaver, Montacute, South Australia)

The male adult moths have green forewings, each with a submarginal white line. The hindwings of the males are white, each with a green hind margin. The male moths have a wingspan of about 4 cms.

Male
(Photo: courtesy of Axel Kallies, Moths of Victoria: Part 6)

The species is found in

Further reading :

Axel Kallies,
Moths of Victoria - Part 6,
Ghost Moths - HEPIALIDAE and Allies,
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2015, pp. 14-15.

Oswald B. Lower,
Descriptions of New South Australian Lepidoptera,
Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia,
Volume 15 (1892), p. 5.

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), pp. 10, 38-39.

Thomas J. Simonsen,
Splendid Ghost Moths and their Allies,
A Revision of Australian Abantiades, Oncopera, Aenetus, Archaeoaenetus and Zelotypia (Hepialidae),
Monographs on Australian Lepidoptera Volume 12,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2018.

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(written 10 December 2016, updated 3 April 2018, 28 January 2020, 11 April 2021)