Heliocausta sarcodes Turner, 1917
WINGIA GROUP,   OECOPHORINAE,   OECOPHORIDAE,   GELECHIOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans,
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

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

The Caterpillar, as it develops, joins two live green leaves together with silk to form a shelter. Later it cuts their leaf stems, causing the shelter to fall to the ground, and it continues to live in its shelter, and feed on the now dead leaves on ground. The caterpillar has been found feeding on the foliage of a variety of

  • Gum Trees ( Eucalyptus species, MYRTACEAE ).

    The adult moths have forewings that are brown each with a pattern of a few dark spots. The hindwings are yellow, each with a variable brown band along the margin. The wingspan is about 2.5 cms.

    The species has been found in

  • Queensland, and
  • New South Wales.


    Further reading :

    Ian F.B. Common,
    Oecophorine Genera of Australia I: The Wingia Group (Lepidoptera: Oecophoridae)
    Monographs on Australian Lepidoptera Volume 3,
    CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 1994, p. 274.

    A. Jefferis Turner,
    Studies in Australian Lepidoptera,
    Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia,
    Volume 41 (1917), pp. 113-114.


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    (written 12 December 2020)