| PTEROPHORINAE, PTEROPHORIDAE, PTEROPHORIOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Debbie Matthews & Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of
Trevor and
Carol Deane,
Dorrigo, New South Wales)
|
| PTEROPHORINAE, PTEROPHORIDAE, PTEROPHORIOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Debbie Matthews & Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of
Trevor and
Carol Deane,
Dorrigo, New South Wales)
This Caterpillar is pale green with sparse small white dots. The head is small and black, sometimes tucked under the body. The true legs and the prolegs look similar, and are pale green with pale feet. Each side of each segment is a pale green verruca with a tuft of off-white hairs. The hairs resemble the hairs on the underside of its foodplant leaves, where it is well camouflaged.
The caterpillar has been reported feeding on the leaves and flowers of:
When feeding on leaves, it eats between the veins, leaving a leaf skeleton behind.
The caterpillar grows to a length of about 1 cm. It appears to pupate in the skin of the final instar, attached by one end to a stem of the foodplant. The cocoon has a length of about 1 cm.
The adult moth is brown with several short white stripes along each forewing, and white markings along the abdomen. The wingspan is about 1.5 cms.
The species has been found in
Further reading :
Edward Meyrick,
On some Lepidoptera from New Guinea,
On the classification of the Pterophoridae,
1886, pp. 12-13.
Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 185.
 caterpillar |  butterflies |  Lepidoptera |  moths |  caterpillar |
(created 16 October 2001, updated 15 January 2026)