male
(Photo: courtesy of Con Boekel, O'Connor, Australian Capital Territory)

The adult moths of this species have a dark brown head, a yellow thorax, and have yellow forewings, each with a dark brown line along the costa, another around the thorax at the base, and a diagonal broken dark brown line from the middle of the wing to the wingtip. The females are much duller than the males. The hindwings are dark brown. The wingspan is about 2 cms.

(Photo: courtesy of Ken Harris, Gunbower, Victoria)

The species has been found in

This species is easily confused with Philobota latifissella, which is superficially similar but paler, and has different structures in the genitalia.

Further Reading:

Ian F.B. Common,
Oecophorine Genera of Australia II: The Chezala, Philobota and Eulechria groups (Lepidoptera: Oecophoridae),
Monographs on Australian Lepidoptera Volume 5,
CSIRO Publishing, 1997, p. 270.

Edward Meyrick,
Exotic Microlepidoptera,
Volume 2 (1920), pp. 383-384.

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(written 29 January 2017, updated 8 June 2025)