Wednesday 13 April 2016

Marbled and not

Must be something about the weather we are having or had that has so many moths around and species that I have not seen before. The species below is a Twisted Marbled Moth in the  Parepisparis excusata,  as opposed to the Grey or Brown Twisted and this one was attracted by the house lights. I thought it was possibly caught in some spider web on the wall however it flew off as soon as I touched it so obviously not caught.


This moth took some identifying and I didn't expect to find it among the 1200 odd moths in the GEOMETRIDAE family but finally tracked it down among the 241 moths in the OENOCHROMINAE sub family. It is found in Queensland, NSW and Victoria and the caterpillars feed on eucalyptus.

The other moth I found on the glass of a door and I was able to get quite a few photos as it didn't make any effort to fly when it was moved.

 As you can see it had quite stunning antenae for its size but with little markings I was worried about finding the id.



After some time on the Butterfly House site I tracked it down in the Tussock Moth family, LYMANTRIIDAE Euproctis fimbriata which is a moth that appears to have two colouring type, the pale form as this one or a brown form. They are found on the east coast of Queensland and NSW where the caterpillars feed on a number of plants including macadamias and avocados.
 

4 comments:

  1. Oh wow...what beautiful and amazing captures. You have a great eye.

    Greetings from Germany.

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    1. Thank you very much for your kind comment, I do enjoy finding wildlife to photograph whether they are large or tiny, something new to amaze.

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  2. Wonderful moths again Ian :) The antennae on the second one are just amazing.

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    1. I was quite taken with this pair the wonderful camo colouring of the first and the stunning antennae on the second, glad you liked the post, cheers

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