Mistletoe Emperor Moth (formerly known as Antheraea loranthi) SATURNIIDAE, BOMBYCOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
communal early instars
(Photo: courtesy of Steven Dodge, Nowra, New South Wales)
These Caterpillars are initially pale yellow with a black thorax and a black penultimate abdominal segment.
Later instars can become orange, with dark scoli, each with a white hair with a flattened tip. Final instars are dark green or brown.
The caterpillar feeds communally on :
The caterpillars pupate in tough dark-brown oval cocoons.
The caterpillars often pupate in a communal cluster of cocoons on the main stem of their foodplant or any neaby stationary object.
The adult moth is rusty brown with wrinkled wingtips, a single brown eyespot in the middle of each wing, and has a black submarginal band on each wing, and a black costa to each forewing. The moth has a wingspan up to 14 cms.
The species is found in Australia often listed as Opodiphthera loranthi) in
This species was moved from the genus Opodiphthera to Austrocaligula by Brechlin in 2005, and many Taxonomists disagree with this reassignment. Here, we follow Brechlin in this most recent publication on this family.
Further reading :
Ronald Brechlin,
Einige Anmerkungen zur Gattung Neodiphthera Fletcher, 1982 stat. rev.
mit Beschreibung von vier neuen Arten (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae),
Nachrichten des Entomologischen Vereins Apollo,
N.F. 26 , Parts 1/2 (2005), pp. 17–29.
Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, p. 406,
(listed as Opodiphthera loranthi)
Thomas P. Lucas,
On Queensland and other Australian Macro-Lepidoptera,
with Localities and Descriptions of new Species,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Series 2, Volume 6, Part 2 (1891), pp. 292-293.
John T. Moss,
The Mistletoe Emperor Moth (Opodiphthera loranthi)
(Lucas) (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae),
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 51 (December 2008), pp. 1, 4-7.
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(updated 14 December 2009, 17 July 2024)