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Identification history
| Lepidoptera unclassified IMMATURE | 20 Oct 2025 | ibaird | ||
| Unverified | 19 Oct 2025 | chriselidie |
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User's notes
Found on footpath between grasslands, has a case that looks like it's made of grass and herbs. Likes to eat grass, two seed vetch and leaves of a desert pea (Swainsona tephrotricha?), occasionally also wood sorrel (oxalis) and clover flowers. Case is 1.5 cm long. Started moving about restlessly for at least two weeks (seemingly not eating), before parking itself with the case front opening down to soil. No movement after 25/11. Case length 2 cm at this point.
6 comments
chriselidie
wrote:
20 Oct 2025
Sorry, not yet a moth. This one is still a happily eating caterpillar. I hope to be able to post a sighting of the moth in future if we get to that point
ibaird
wrote:
20 Oct 2025
OK,i ts certainly an insect larvae, I was just querying wheteer it was in fact a moth.
chriselidie
wrote:
20 Oct 2025
Oh, ok - I thought it is a case moth, looks like one I had last year with a different type of case. But I don't know for sure. What kind of picture would best help show if it's a moth caterpillar or a different insect?
ibaird
wrote:
20 Oct 2025
Your photo is excellent. Good luck with rearing the catepillar to adulthood. We usually assume that radically different pupal cases mean different species. Likely Psychidae, but I ccannot say for sure,
Sighting information
- 1 Abundance
- chriselidie Recorded by
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Collections
chriselidie NatureMapr Canberra & Southern Tablelands Other moths Moths (Lepidoptera) Insects
Additional information
- Feeds on grass and legume plants Associated plant
- 12mm to 25mm Animal size
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