The caterpillar pupates in its wooden tunnel near the entrance, forming a plug at the entrance before doing so. It pushes this plug out a few days before emerging as a moth.

female
(Picture: courtesy of CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences)

The adult moths are a patchy orange, with a complex pattern along the costa and a vague eyespot on each forewing. The males have a white and a brown diagonal stripe, and a white eye-spot and other white markings on each forewing. The hindwings of both sexes are plain orange. The females have an orange abdomen with a dark brown tip. The male abdomen is plain dark brown. The moths can be very large, having a wingspan up to 25 cms.

female
(Photo: courtesy of Amanda and Dale Hibbert, Central Coast, New South Wales)

The adult moths are inclined to hang from a branch and look like a dead leaf.

female
(Photo: courtesy of Amanda and Dale Hibbert, Central Coast, New South Wales)

When disturbed: the moths arch their abdomen.

male
(Photo: courtesy of Bronwyn Laing, Wallerawang, New South Wales)

The species occurs in

Further reading :

David Carter,
Butterflies and Moths, Collins Eyewitness Handbooks, Sydney 1992, p. 294.

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1990, p. 148.

Axel Kallies,
Moths of Victoria - Part 6,
Ghost Moths - HEPIALIDAE and Allies,
Entomological Society of Victoria, 2015, pp. 18-19.

A.S. Olliff,
Notes on Zelotypia stacyi, and an account of a variety,
Kabourek, Sokolska, Czech Republic, 1887, 4 pp.

Alexander Walker Scott,
Description of a new genus belonging to the family Hepialidae of Stephens,
Transactions of the Entomological Society of New South Wales,
Volume 2 (1869) p. 38.

Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australian Moths, CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 42.

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(updated 2 April 2011, 16 March 2017)