and so are a pest in Eucalyptus plantations. The caterpillars feed on the surface of leaves.

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

The caterpillars live in a shelter of crumpled leaves held together with silk. The caterpillars become darker as they mature, and the head becomes yellow. The body turns orange and yellow in the last instar.

pupae: female above, male below
(Photo: courtesy of N. Mauchline, T.W. Withers, and M.J. Nuttall, SCION, New Zealand Farm Forestry Association)

They pupate in under bark or in a curled leaf or in ground debris. The female pupa appears to have one less abdominal segment than the male.

male
(Photo: courtesy of Aman Hunt , Wellington, New Zealand)

The adult moth has brown stippled forewings. The male usually has a broad pale wavy area along the costa of each forewing.

female
(Photo: courtesy of Donald Hobern, Aranda, Australian Capital Territory)

The female typically has a broad pale wavy area along the hind margin of each forewing. The hindwings are pale brown with dark veins.

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

The species has been found in:

as well as in Australia in

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

Further reading :

Marianne Horak and Furumi Komai,
Olethreutine Moths of Australia: (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae),
Monographs on Australian Lepidoptera Series, Volume 10,
CSIRO Publishing, 2006.

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), p. 65.

Edward Meyrick,
Descriptions of Australian Micro-lepidoptera VI: Tortricina,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Series 1, Volume 6, Part 3 (1881), p. 683, No. 3.

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(updated 2 June 2011, 24 May 2023)