Two new moths
A burst of quite hot weather has brought out a lot of moths. The weather is still very dry but in the space of a week I have seen a number of new moths here. Two of the new moths are below.**********************************************************************************
Diasemiopsis ramburialis SPILOMELINAE CRAMBIDAE
Although this moth is supposed to be fairly common world wide, I have never noticed it here before.The larval food plant was previously thought to be possibly a Brassica species, but I came across an article on the internet in which the moth larvae are helping to control the Azolla water fern (Azolla filiculoides Lam., Azollaceae) in rice plantations in Iran. This is a relatively new discovery confirming the larval food plant.
The article can be found at https://nl.pensoft.net/article/6887/
There is a further article on the water fern in Australia :-
http://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com.au/search?q=Azolla
Family:- CRAMBIDAESub Family:- SPILOMELINAE
Genus:- Diasemiopsis
Species:- ramburialis
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Euchaetis rhizobola OECOPHORINAE OECOPHORIDAE
With a wingspan of around 30mm this is a large moth for this family. The larval food plant is the green leaves of the Eucalyptus trees. They can be found over a range from Yeppoon, in Queensland to Victoria and also in south Western Australia.The rear wings of the moth are a brilliant silver white.
In the photo of the underside you can see that one of the labial palps is missing. I took another photo a couple of days later of another moth of the same species with both palps in tact, so there are at least a couple of the moths around at the moment.
Family:- OECOPHORIDAE
Sub Family:- OECOPHORINAE
Genus:- Euchaetis
Species:- rhizobola
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