The young of the moth I found on the ceiling of our verandah this morning are partial to Lychee leaves, as well as those of Longan, Rambutan, Tamarillo and various other tropical fruit trees.
The caterpillar which is quite colourful gave the common name to the moth, Conspicuous Looper, Oxyodes tricolor but the moth likes to hide its colours which are on the rear wings, half black and bright orange, that you can just see peeping through. The fore wings have a span of about 40mm and are quite variable in pattern and colour .
The range of the moth is through south and south east Asia and coastal Queensland and NSW in Australia. As their preferred food trees are tropical to sub tropical fruits we are at the southern end of the range.
No comments:
Post a Comment