Orthaga thyrisalis (Walker, 1859)
Teatree Web Moth
(previously known as Bertula thyrisalis)
EPIPASCHIINAE,   PYRALIDAE,   PYRALOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley


(Photo: courtesy of Merlin Crossley, Melbourne, Victoria)

This Caterpillar lives with others of its kind in a communal shelter made of dead leaves and silk webbing. Its body is fawn, with a broad pale green band along the back, which is bisected by a grey line. Its head is dark brown. It is a garden pest, attacking various plants in the family MYRTACEAE such as:

  • Geraldton Waxflower ( Chamelaucium uncinatum ),
  • Teatree ( Leptospermum species), and
  • Paperbark ( Melaleuca species).

    It pupates within its shelter, and the adult emerges about four weeks later


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

    The adult has short upturned labial palps that project like a beak. The forewings are grey-brown, with pale areas and submarginal zig-zag lines. The forewings each have a particularly dark area around the base, and a broad zig-zag pale band from costa to hind-margin. The hindwings are grey-brown, fading at the bases. The legs have have alternating light and dark bands. The wing margins are chequered. The wingspan is about 3 cms.


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

    The species occurs over the southern half of Australia: including

  • Queensland,
  • New South Wales,
  • Australian Capital Territory,
  • Victoria,
  • Tasmania,
  • South Australia, and
  • Western Australia.


    underside
    (Photo: courtesy of John Bromilow, Ainslie, Australian Capital Territory)


    Further reading :

    Ian F.B. Common,
    Moths of Australia,
    Melbourne University Press, 1990, pp. 67, 348.

    Pat and Mike Coupar,
    Flying Colours,
    New South Wales University Press, Sydney 1992, p. 83.

    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. 74.

    Francis Walker,
    Deltoides,
    List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum,
    Part 16 (1859), p. 167, No. 7.


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    (updated 5 April 2013, 16 July 2018, 8 November 2020)