![]() | one of several species called informally the Wattle Goat Moth (also known as Eudoxyla liturata) ZEUZERINAE, COSSIDAE, COSSOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of
Jenny Holmes, Great Western, Victoria)
The female moth of this species lays her eggs in holes she bores into the trunks and branches of various
The Caterpillars bore through the wood making it a sort of honeycomb of tunnels.
Pupation occurs in its borehole, and when the moth emerges from metamorphosis, it leaves the empty pupal case half sticking out from the mouth of its tunnel. The life cycle can take up to four years
The adult moths have wings with a streaky speckled fawn pattern. The abdomen is banded in brown and grey.
The moths are distinguished from other Endoxyla species by a black band running around the thorax.
The female moths have a wingspan of about 8 cms. The male moths have a wingspan of about 5 cms.
The species is found over all of Australia, including
Further reading :
Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, figs. 26.9, 51.14, pp. 270-271.
Edward Donovan,
General Illustration of Entomology,
An Epitome of the Natural History of the Insects of
New Holland, New Zealand, New Guinea, Otaheite and other
Islands in the Indian, Southern and Pacific Oceans,
London (1803), pp. 167-168, and also
Plate on p. 166.
S. Fearn,
Life history and habits of the wood moth Xyleutes lituratus Don.
(Lepidoptera, Cossidae) in Tasmania,
Australian Entomological Magazine,
Volume 12 (1985).
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), pp. viii, 68.
Gottlieb August Wilhelm Herrich-Schäffer,
Sammlung neuer oder wenig bekannter aussereuropäischer Schmetterlinge,
Verzeichniss der in diesem Werke gelieferten Arten nach Reihenfolge ihrer Veroffentlichung,
Series I, Volume 1, Part 3 (1855), p. 58, and
fig. 162.
![]() caterpillar | ![]() butterflies | ![]() Lepidoptera | ![]() moths | ![]() caterpillar |
(updated 16 September 2013, 25 January 2025)