Early instars shelter under young leaves. Later instars lie along twigs for camouflage.

The pupa is formed in a yellow pear-shaped cocoon anchored by its four corners to a leaf.

(Don Herbison-Evans, Bundaberg, Queensland)

The moth has grey forewings and bright orange hindwings. The forewings each have an indistinct dark line diagonally across them. The hindwings have a black margin. The wingspan is up to 4 cms.

male, drawing by Felder & Rogenhofer, listed as Amphipyra laportei,
Reise der Osterreichischen Fregatte Novara,
Band 2, Abtheilung 2 (5) (1875), Plate CXI, fig. 28,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The species is found across south-east Asia to the south Pacific, including:

and also in Australia in:

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, pl. 22.4, p. 458.

Rudolf Felder & Alois F. Rogenhofer,
Zoologisher Theil,
Reise der Osterreichischen Fregatte Novara,
Band 2, Abtheilung 2 (5) (1875), p. 2, and also Plate 111, fig. 28.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 171.

Francis Walker,
Catalogue of Lepidoptera Heterocera,
List of the Specimens of Lepidopterous Insects in the Collection of the British Museum,
Part 13 (1858), p. 1215, No. 1.

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(updated 14 February 2010, 17 January 2019, 30 December 2020)