Green Looper at Macgregor, ACT
Identification history
| Chrysodeixis eriosoma | 3 Aug 2025 | donhe | ||
| Chrysodeixis eriosoma | 3 Aug 2025 | Caric |
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User's notes
Lots of green caterpillars on my chilli plants when I brought them in for the winter. I assumed they were cabbage whites but didn't have the heart to pick them off and throw them out into the frosty winter, so lined a takeaway container with kitchen roll, put in a rolled up Chinese cabbage leaf, made a hole in the lid and over the next few days located about seven caterpillars and put them in the box. Some evidence of eating but they didn't seem as keen as I'd expected. I also became puzzled that I couldn't spot many caterpillars. Lots of poo started piling up in the leaf and 3 eventually pupated on the lid after, so I figured they must be eating. I decided it was time to change the leaf and paper. To my puzzlement, the other caterpillars had vanished. Can caterpillars be cannibalistic? (Especially if cabbage was not to their taste)?
The pupae 'lost their caterpillar heads' (visible in the webbing of the photos) and their green bodies turned black on one side. Not long before emerging the pupae seemed to be mobile and turned their green face uppermost for a day and then back again. Then one morning I found a dark moth in the box, identified it, and as 'moths in the ACT' says they can be found any time of year I released it. One chrysalis is still in its cocoon but it should be out any day now.
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Location information
- Places Macgregor, ACT
Sighting information
- 7 Abundance
- Caric Recorded by
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Collections
Caric NatureMapr Canberra & Southern Tablelands Chrysodeixis eriosoma Noctuoid moths (except Arctiinae) Moths (Lepidoptera) Insects
Additional information
- Chilli plant Associated plant
- 12mm to 25mm Animal size
Species information
- Chrysodeixis eriosoma Scientific name
- Green Looper Common name
- Not Sensitive
- Exotic
- Non-invasive or negligible
- Up to 661.5m Recorded at altitude
- External link More information
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Synonyms
Plusia adjuncta
Record quality
- Images or audio
- More than one media file
- Verified by an expert moderator
- Nearby sighting(s) of same species
- GPS evidence of location
- Description
- Additional attributes