Hi John
Most likely one of the swift moths (Hepialidae) or wood/goat
moths (Cossidae) - both of these families contain some very large species. A
swift moth may be more likely as I think a lot of them are known to emerge and
fly in autumn, particularly after rain; the big wood moths (Endoxyla
spp) may be more likely in summer. The swift moth Trictena atripalpis would
be my guess, females have a wingspan of up to 16cm - have a squizz at this site
and see if anything looks like yours - just click on the relevant family and
browse the photos – there are some nice shots of live specimens
http://linus.socs.uts.edu.au/~don/larvae/moths.html
cheers
Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: John Brannan [
Sent: Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:51 AM
To:
Subject: Large moth ID
I know this is off-topic for COG, but can anyone ID the
very large moths
that were beating themselves to death against my studio
window last night.
They are the size of a small bird, with a wingspan of
maybe 5-6 inches,
bodies around 3 inches long and as fat as my forefinger.
Generally a
mottled brown colour with rather slender wings. After
leafing through my
fairly useless insect book, I think that they are perhaps
a type of goat
moth. They don't have the pointed abdomen of the hawk
moths and they
fold their wings back over their bodies at rest, rather
than laying them
out flat to the sides.
Thanks,
John Brannan
------------
Canberra, Australia
Email:
Phone: (+612) 6258 6038 Fax: (+612) 6258 6238
*******************************************************************************************************
This is the email announcement and discussion list of the
Canberra Ornithologists Group.
List-Post:
<>
List-Help:
<>
List-Unsubscribe:
<>
List-Subscribe:
<>
List archive:
<http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/canberrabirds>
List manager: David McDonald, email
<>
