Grass Day Moth
Larva2, Front "Real" Legs
Ellura
Grass Day Moth
Larva2, 2 Middle Pair of Prolegs
 
                      
Grass Day Moth (Apina callisto)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)
Order: Butterflies & Moths (Lepidoptera)
Family: Owlet moth (:Noctuoidea Noctuidae Agaristinae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Grass Day Moth (Apina callisto)
This Photo:     Larva2, Rear "Prolegs"
Other name: Pasture Day Moth

Thank you Prof Victor W Fazio III† for confirming and Don Herbison-Evans for helping with the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
While larvae vary greatly in size, these are ~45-50mm long. The female is ~25mm long & ~55mm wingspan. Males have bipectinate antennae, will females are filiform.
We Id'ed this species from the first photo of a Larva some time ago. Unfortunately we didn't keep records of this (still learning). But then we recently found the adult and was double checking on Don Herbison-Evan's site when we realised our larva looks different to the photo's on his site.
We almost pulled the photos from our site, but thought we'd ask the man himself.
Don is incredibly helpful and has a reputation of being a nice bloke. So he happily responded back with

"Yes those look like the 3 prothorax stripes of an Apino callisto caterpillar. Of course the real test is to rear it to the adult moth and compare that with the holotype. Individual caterpillars do vary in colour, depending on instar, food, microclimate, genetics, etc (like humans do)."

There's a big lesson here. We can't rely on Larva for a confident id. So in future we will always put a "?" against a species based on larva alone. Also, to re-iterate, identification from photos alone is fraught with difficulty & errors

Notice the strange horn extrusion on it's face.

Copyright © 2013-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 09-Sep-2013
This species is an Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.