and is inclined to eat the leaves of many other dicotyledons, including :

(Photo: courtesy of David Akers, Won Wron, Victoria)

The caterpillar pupates under the soil. The pupa is brown.

(Specimen: courtesy of the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)

The adult moths are reddish-brown with a faint pattern on the forewings, sometimes including a dark or a white spot near the middle. They have a wingspan of about 3 cms.

male, drawing by George Francis Hampson, listed as Agrotis compta,
Catalogue of Lepidoptera Phalænæ in the British Museum,
Noctuidæ, Volume IV (1903), Plate LXX, figure 18,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University.

The species is found in

as well as in Australia in:

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Elaine McDonald, Nicholls Rivulet, Tasmania)

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, fig. 50.3, pp. 65, 461, 465, 467.

Achille Guenée,
Noctuélites,
in Boisduval & Guenée:
Histoire naturelle des insectes; spécies général des lépidoptères,
Volume 9, Part 5, Section 1 (1852), p. 337, No. 566.

Peter Marriott & Marilyn Hewish,
Moths of Victoria - Part 9,
Cutworms and Allies - NOCTUOIDEA (C),
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2020, pp. 28-29.

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(updated 15 April 2013, 23 May 2023)