Synemon selene

Synemon selene Klug, 1850
Pale Sun Moth
(one synonym : Synemon adelaida Swinhoe, 1892)
CASTNIIDAE, SESIOIDEA

Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Synemon selene
(Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

The adult moths have brown wings with various variable markings often including, two white spots on each forewing, and a broad broken orange submarginal band on each hindwing. The wingspan of the males is about 3.5 cms. The wingspan of the females is about 4.5 cms.

drawing by Charles Swinhoe, listed as Synemon adelaida,
Catalogue of eastern and Australian Lepidoptera Heterocera in the collection of the Oxford University Museum,
Part 1: Sphinges and Bombyces (1892), Plate VII, Fig. 10,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The species has been found in

Victoria, and

South Australia.

Further reading :

Johann Christoph Friedrich Klug,
Uber dieLepidopteren-Gattung Synemon,
Abhandlungen der Koeniglich-Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Berlin, 1848, p. 249.

Caterpillars, moths, and their plants of Southern Australia,
Peter B. McQuillan, Jan A. Forrest, David Keane, & Roger Grund,
Butterfly Conservation South Australia Inc., Adelaide (2019), p. 71.

Charles Swinhoe,
Sphinges and Bombyces,
Catalogue of eastern and Australian Lepidoptera Heterocera in the collection of the Oxford University Museum,
Clarendon Press, Part 1 (1892), p. 154, No. 711,, and also Plate 7, Fig. 10.

Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australian Moths,
CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 27.

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(written 20 February 2015, updated 9 September 2019, 30 July 2021)