| (previously known as Phalaena pueritia) SPILOMELINAE, CRAMBIDAE, PYRALOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Bart Hacobian & Stella Crossley |
(Specimen: courtesy of the
Macleay Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney)
|
| (previously known as Phalaena pueritia) SPILOMELINAE, CRAMBIDAE, PYRALOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Bart Hacobian & Stella Crossley |
(Specimen: courtesy of the
Macleay Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney)
These Caterpillars are green and live singly in a rolled leaf of their foodplant. They have been found feeding on the leaves of a hybrid
The caterpillar grows to a length of about 2 cms.
The adult moth of this species is pale brown, with complex white markings edged in dark brown over each wing, including a long hook-shaped mark near the tornus of each hindwing. It has a long brown and white abdomen. In its resting position, it holds its antennae swept back over the forewings. The moth has a wingspan of about 3 cms.
The species has been found over tropical south-east Asia, including :
as well as in Australia in
This species is sometimes considered to be a junior synonym for the Asian species Nausinoe perspectata (Fabricius, 1775) rather than a distinct Australian species.
Further reading :
Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia,
Melbourne University Press, 1990, pl. 9.9, p. 357.
Pieter Cramer,
Description de Papillons Exotiques,
Uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen,
Amsterdam Baalde, Volume 3 (1782), p. 128, and also
Plate 264, fig. E.
Peter Hendry,
The Return of the Crambidae,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 54 (September 2009), pp. 23-25.
Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 43.
 caterpillar |  butterflies |  Lepidoptera |  moths |  caterpillar |
(updated 11 December 2012, 12 October 2025)