The caterpillars are brown and hairy, and have a yellow stripe along the back. They appear to be able to eat any herbaceous plant.

Pupation typically occurs on a dead leaf in a sparse cocoon incorporating larval hairs.

(Photo: courtesy of Graeme Cocks, Townsville, Queensland)

The adult moth of this species has brown forewings, each with a broken dark streak. The hindwings are white. The abdomen is red or sometimes yellow. The males have four eversible coremata at the tip of the abdomen which emit pheromones, each when inflated is longer than the abdomen. The moths have a wingspan of about 4 cms.

male with two coremata inflated
(Photo: courtesy of Neil Hewett, Cooper Creek Wilderness, Queensland)

The eggs are round and yellow. They are laid on the leaf of a foodplant in rows, in clusters of up to 50.

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Graeme Cocks, Townsville, Queensland)

The pest may be controlled by the use of:

Creatonotos gangis is found over much of south-east Asia, including :

as well as in Australia in

male with four coremata inflated
(Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, Kuranda, Queensland)

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1990, pp. 46, 435.

Peter Hendry,
The Australian Arctiid Moths (Lepidoptera: Noctuoidea: Erebidae) with emphasis on Creatonotos Gangis,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 65 (June 2012), pp. 12-13.

Carl Linnaeus,
Centuria Insectorum,
Amoenitates Academicae,
Volume 6 (1763), pp. 410-411, No. 82.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 12.

Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australian Moths, CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 182.

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(updated 31 May 2013, 7 July 2024)