Australian Striped Hawk Moth
Adult, dorsal
Orange-spotted Sun Moth
Iridescence
| Australian Striped Hawk Moth Adult, dorsal | | Orange-spotted Sun Moth Iridescence | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Butterflies & Moths (Lepidoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Sun Moth (:Castnioidea Castniidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Orange-spotted Sun Moth (Synemon parthenoides ssp parthenoides) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍Dorsal🔎 | ||||
| Other name: | Link Moth | ||||
Thank you Ethan Beaver for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found in the Adelaide Hills and possibly elsewhere A very special thank you to Rusty Ryder for taking us to their location and pointing them out to us. In flight they looked very much like the brown butterflies around at the time. If Rusty wasn't there to point them out to us, we wouldn't have noticed them, just thinking they were fast flying brown butterflies. A most unusual moth in that their antennae are the same as a butterflies, clubbed on the end; plus never sits with it's wings vertically together like butterflies. As we weren't able to catch one, we have no size information, but they were smaller than the Klug's Xenica. Similar to Synemon sophia (another sun moth species). We suspect the 4th photo shows a female as the body is fatter & not as elongated as the other 3 (possibly males?). Notice the iridescence on the leading edge of the forewings (which disappears easily with a slight tilt) as well as along the trailing edge of all wings. Similar Species: Klug's Xenica (Geitoneura klugii) | |||||
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