Unidentified

Fascinating Cath - it's great to watch a creature over time if you're fortunate enough to be able to do it. Good luck getting an id.

Now we have a clear photo of the moth's head, it is evidently in Tineoidea, very different from Spodoptera mauritia which is in Noctuoidea.

Very exciting, when ID is confirmed I'm thinking that it would be good to write this up somewhere as a sort note.

The other sightings of Tineola bisselliella seem to be smaller than this moth. The length of this specimen from head to wing tip as seen in the third image is 2 cm. It is tightly wrapped in silk, so difficult to tell its original shape.

Yes, that is a rather big for T. bisselliella. The Psychidae also have the Tineoid fur hat, and are a bit bigger. The only completely brown one I know is Lepidoscia basiferana. That has a wingspan of about 3 cms.

Cath gave me the moth specimen in this record. The moth certainly looked in its webbing very much the same as the main photo in 4371024. I wasn't too optimistic about how it would survive web removal, but after relaxing it and then breaking some of the threads around the head and across the wings and abdomen, the rest of the web slid off over the rear of the moth in a sleeve. The antennae, palpi and legs sprung out into the positions typical of a dead moth, and the male genitalia were well exposed. It’s now on a setting board with the wings fully spread and body exposed. It's not Spodoptera mauritia. I think it’s Diarsia intermixta, a common ACT moth regularly reported on CNM, but I don't want to commit to that until I can see it free of the setting board when it dries out in a week or two. This species and Spodoptera spp are from the same subfamily Noctuinae. It's worth noting that there is a different species in the group of four moths in the second 4373081 photo - it looks rather like Pseudanapaea transvestita of the very different family Limacodidae (also on CNM).