Hestiochora xanthocoma Meyrick, 1886 (erroneously known as Hestiochora xanthosoma) PROCRIDINAE,   ZYGAENIDAE,   ZYGAENOIDEA

Don Herbison-Evans (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley

(Photo: courtesy of Graeme Cocks, Townsville, Queensland)

The adult moth of this species is rather wasp-like, having a black body with some yellow bands, and a yellow collar around its head. The wings are black with a broad yellow stripe along the middle of each wing. The underside of the abdomen is white. The female is rather fatter than the male. The moth has a wingspan of about 2 cms.

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

The species has been found in:

Queensland.

Drawing by Embrik Strand,
Tascina-Isocrambia, Indo-Australian Bombyces and Sphinges,
in Adalbert Seitz (ed.): The Macrolepidoptera of the World,
Stuttgart : Alfred Kernen Verlag, Volume 10 (1933), Plate 1, fig h2,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Natural History Museum Library, London.

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Graeme Cocks, Townsville, Queensland)

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Further reading :

Edward Meyrick,
Revision of Australian Lepidoptera. I,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Series 2, Volume 1, Part 3 (1886), pp. 788-789, No. 144.

Embrik Strand,
Tascina-Isocrambia, Indo-Australian Bombyces and Sphinges,
in Adalbert Seitz (ed.): The Macrolepidoptera of the World,
Stuttgart : Alfred Kernen Verlag,
Volume 10, (1933), Plate 1, fig h2.

Gerhard M. Tarmann,
Zygaenid moths of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing 2004.

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(updated 27 January 2012, 12 July 2026)