cocoon
(Photo: courtesy of Craig Nieminski, Darwin, Northern Territory)

The caterpillar pupates in an untidy brown and white cocoon under a foodplant leaf.

Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, from
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art

The adult moths are brown with of dark diagonal lines across each forewing. The wingspan is about 3 cms.

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

The species has been found in

as well as:

(Photo: courtesy of Mark Heath, Kununurra, Western Australia)

Some taxonomists have the view that this species is identical to, and its name a senior synonym of Aiteta elaina.

female, drawing by George Francis Hampson,
Catalogue of Lepidoptera Phalænæ in the British Museum,
Noctuidæ, Volume XI (1912), Plate CLXXXVIII, figure 3,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University.

male, drawing by George Francis Hampson, listed as Aiteta elaina,
Catalogue of Lepidoptera Phalænæ in the British Museum,
Noctuidæ, Volume XI (1912), Plate CLXXXVIII, figure 4,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University.

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Mark Heath, Kununurra, Western Australia)

The adult moths have a coiled haustellum under the head, which they can uncoil, and through which they can sip nectar from flowers.

close-up of head
(Photo: courtesy of Mark Heath, Kununurra, Western Australia)

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, fig. 48.7, p. 458.

Edward Meyrick,
On some Lepidoptera from New Guinea,
Transactions of The Entomological Society of London,
1889, pp. 473-474, No. 50.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 167.

Charles Swinhoe,
New genera and species of Eastern and Australian moths,
The Annals and Magazine of Natural History,
Series 7, Volume 7 (1901), p. 492.

previous caterpillar

Australian butterflies

Australian Lepidoptera

Australian moths

next caterpillar

(updated 13 November 2012, 22 June 2021)