| EREBINAE, EREBIDAE, NOCTUOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of
Amaury Durbano ,
Touho, New Caledonia)
|
| EREBINAE, EREBIDAE, NOCTUOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Photo: courtesy of
Amaury Durbano ,
Touho, New Caledonia)
The caterpillar is smooth, and is a patchy reddish brown, with scattered black dots, black spiracles, and several black-edged white patches. It has a pair of short white-edged black horns on the last segment. It has a full complement of 16 orange legs and prolegs. When disturbed: it arches up and expands the segments behind the head. The caterpillar grows to a length of about 6 cms.
The caterpillar has been found feeding on the foliage of
The adult moths are patchy blue-grey, often with a broad pale band across the middle of each forewing. The hindwings each have a pale basal half and a darker marginal half. The blue tinge fades to brown in museum specimens. The moths have a wingspan of about 7 cms. The moths feed on nectar and also the juice of damaged ripe fruit.
The species occurs across the south-west Pacific, including
as well as in Australia in
Further reading :
Louis Beethoven Prout,
Some apparently new Noctuidae from Sumatra, New Guinea, Mefor, and Buru,
Bulletin of the Hill Museum (Witley),
Volume 1 (1924), p. 447, No. 22, and also
Plate 15, fig. 2.
Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 151.
 caterpillar |  butterflies |  Lepidoptera |  moths |  caterpillar |
(written 17 August 2013, updated 4 November 2025)