The colour of the caterpillar appears to depend on its food. It can vary from nearly white to dark grey. The caterpillar has a brown head. It lives in a loose web spun amongst its food. It makes a loose silk web in its patch of foodstuff. The webbing can cause problems with machinery handing the material.

(Photo: Don Herbison-Evans, Sydney, New South Wales)

When one caterpillar encounters another, they each produce a small amount of brown liquid from the mouth, and this causes the caterpillars to walk apart. This appears to be a mechanism that prevents overcrowding of the caterpillars. Unfortunately for the caterpillars, this mandibular secretion also attracts parasitoid wasps such as the Ichneumonid Venturia canescens.

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

The adult is grey or brown, often with a pale basal area on each forewing demarked by a dark line. The hindwings are plain off-white.

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

The moth has a wingspan of about 2 cms. The pheromones of the species have been elucidated.

(Photo: courtesy of the Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

The species is endemic to:

and has now spread to

and most of Australia, including:

drawing by Jacob Hübner, listed as Tinea elutella,
Tineae V, Ignobiles B, Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge,
Volume 8, Plate 24, fig. 163,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University.

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, p. 350.

Jacob Hübner,
Tineae V, Ignobiles B,
Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge.,
Volume 8 (1796), p. 33, and also Plate 24, fig. 163.

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(updated 21 August 2012, 29 April 2024)