Saturday 10 September 2016

Lichen the camouflage

Found this small moth amongst a pile of Casurarina glauca branches and branchlets that I was clearing out of my trailer. Only spotted it as it moved otherwise I am sure I would have missed it.


Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so had to make do with the Iphone and  it is not as sharp as I would have liked.
The identification took a bit of time even though I was fairly sure it was in the GEOMETRIAE family and I tracked it down to the sub-family ENNOMINAE where it was identified as Paradromulia ambigua an appropriate name as there are wide colour variations and patterns and many without the white markings.
The moth is found in Queensland and NSW but I didn't find any other information although it would appear to be ideally suited to association with lichen.

2 comments:

  1. Superb camouflage on the moth Ian :)

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  2. Yes a real beauty and I couldn't believe how close it matched the lichen:)

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