Initially their leaf mine is straight and filled with frass, typically in a leaf of a young shoot. Later their mine turns into a blotch with frass around the periphery.

(Photo: courtesy of Stephen Thorpe, Auckland, New Zealand)

To pupate, the caterpillars leave their mine, and pupate between leaves and twigs in a flimsy white cocoon.

(Photo: courtesy of David Tang, Danbulla, Queensland)

This moth has white forewings, each with several diagonal brown streaks, and a doubly ringed dark brown spot on the margin. The hindwings are brown. The hind-margins of the forewings, and both the costas and hind-margins of the hindwings have long white fringes. The antennae are slightly longer than the forewings. The moth has a wingspan of about 8 mm.

The species has been found in

and in Australia in

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

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, pp. 215-216.

Edward Meyrick,
Descriptions of Australian Micro-lepidoptera. III,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Volume 5, Part 2 (1880), p. 172.

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(updated 18 May 2004, 25 January 2024)