Mnesampela arida McQuillan, 1985
 DIPTYCHINI,   ENNOMINAE,   GEOMETRIDAE,   GEOMETROIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
( donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Cathy Byrne & Stella Crossley

Mnesampela arida
(Photo: copyright Cathy Byrne)

These Caterpillars are brown with a dotted dark band along the back flanked each side by dark zigzag lines. Their claspers are splayed out like a fish tail, and there are a pair of fleshy knobs with white tips on the second abdominal segment.

The caterpillars feed on the foliage of :

  • various Gum Trees ( Eucalyptus species, MYRTACEAE ).

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

    The adult moths have brown forewings, often each with a dark spot in the middle. The hindwings are pale brown darkening toward the margins.

    The species occurs in

  • South Australia, and
  • Western Australia.

    Further reading :

    Peter B. McQuillan,
    A taxonomic revision of the Australian autumn gum moth genus Mnesampela Guest (Lepidoptera: Geometridae, Ennominae),
    Entomologica Scandinavica,
    Volume 16 (1985), p. 199.

    Catherine J. Young,
    Characterisation of the Australian Nacophorini and a Phylogeny for the Geometridae from Molecular and Morphological Data,
    Ph.D. thesis, University of Tasmania, 2003.

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    (updated 20 September 2011, 26 February 2017, 7 March 2021)