Brown Ground Moth
Female, wings
Ellura
Brown Ground Moth
Female, ventral
 
                      
Brown Ground Moth (Philobota sp ES02)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Butterflies & Moths (Lepidoptera)
Family: Oecophorid Moth (:Gelechioidea Oecophoridae)
Species: Brown Ground Moth (Philobota sp ES02)
This Photo:     Female, stance

Thank you Glenn Cocking for identifying and Peter Marriott for helping with the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
Head & body ~10mm, wingspan ~13mm.
Peter said "I have just got an email from Glenn Cocking in Canberra about our flightless gelechioid. He says there was a similar image from a local up there and he tracked down some similar things, also from Canberra, in the ANIC collection. They were from the 1940s to the 1960s, all collected in May, unnamed and placed in the Philobota."
Marie found this flightless female, with reduced wings, walking around the floor of the annex. While we knew it was a Gelechioidea from it's upcurved pointy palps, we hadn't relised they had flightless females. After searching extensively on-line we found nothing like it.
Very excited we asked Peter, who responded with the above.
The reduced wings make the legs look very long.
Initially though it was a long legged fly running around.

Copyright © 2018-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 07-Jun-2018
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.