(erroneously known as Ophiusa microrrhaea) EREBINAE, EREBIDAE, NOCTUOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of
Craig Nieminski, Darwin, Northern Territory)
This caterpillar is brown and knobbly, with pale and dark wobbly stripes. It has been found feeding on
The pupa is brown, and formed on or in the soil with no cocoon.
The moths have brown forewings, and bright orange hindwings that have broad black margins and a large black spot in the middle. The wings have smooth margins. The abdomen is orange. The wingspan is about 7 cms.
Underneath, the sexes have different patterns. The undersides of the male are variable. Sometimes they dark brown shading paler at the margins. Sometimes the underside of the forewings have a yellow diagonal bar, and have a yellow base. The male hindwing undersides can also be dark brown shading paler at the margins, or they can have similar patterns to those on the upper surfaces except they are in brown and yellow.
The undersides of the female are pale brown with a large dark spot near the middle underside of each forewing, and a large pale spot near the middle of the underside of each hindwing.
The species occurs in
This species needs to re-assigned to another genus.
Further reading :
Johan Christian Fabricius,
Historiae Natvralis Favtoribvs,
Systema Entomologiae,
1775, p. 593, No. 12.
Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 145.
caterpillar | butterflies | Lepidoptera | moths | caterpillar |
(updated 30 May 2013, 1 September 2023)