Pygmaeomorpha modesta Bethune-Baker, 1904 (one synonym: Birthama leucosticta Turner, 1904) LIMACODIDAE,   ZYGAENOIDEA

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

female
(Photo: courtesy of Buck Richardson, Kuranda, Queensland)

The adult female moths of this species have brown patterned forewings, and plain brown hindwings.

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

The males have a simpler less well-defined pattern, and also have small white spot near the middle of each forewing.

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

The wingspan is about 3 cms.

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

The species occurs in :

Queensland.

male, photo by George Thomas Bethune-Baker,
New Lepidoptera from British New Guinea, Novitates Zoologicae,
Volume 11 (1904), Plate 5, fig. 35,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Natural History Museum Library, London

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Further reading :

George Thomas Bethune-Baker,
New Lepidoptera from British New Guinea,
Novitates Zoologicae,
Volume 11 (1904), p. 387, No. 47, and also Plate 5, fig. 35.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 106.

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(updated 29 August 2010, 22 August 2020)