(previously known as : Axiologa pura)
LYMANTRIIDAE
Don Herbison-Evans (
donherbisonevans@yahoo.com )
&
Stella Crossley
(Photo: courtesy of Brenda Martin, Pambula, NSW)
Don Herbison-Evans (
donherbisonevans@yahoo.com )
&
Stella Crossley
(Photo: courtesy of Brenda Martin, Pambula, NSW)
This caterpillar is yellow with an orange head and is covered in long white hairs. These include a tussock on the back of each of the first four abdominal segments.
Specimens have been observed devouring the leaves of :
The caterpillar pupates under a leaf in a voluminous loose cocoon containing the discarded larval skin and many larval hairs.
The adult female moth is white, with a pattern of broken thin brown lines on the forewings. She has white hindwings. It has a wingspan of about 6 cms.
The male has more pronounced brown lines, and has orange hind wings with dark margins. The male has a span of about 4 cms. The undersides show a black dot in the middle of each wing.
Our female specimen laid about 200 eggs on the cocoon. They were pale yellow and shaped like a doughnut, with a diameter of about 0.5 mm.
The species has been taken in
Further reading :
Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, fig. 55.5, p. 428.
Peter Marriott,
Moths of Victoria: Vol 2: Noctuoidea(A),
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2009, pp. 18-19.
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(updated 14 April 2011)