Tobacco Looper
S2, dorsal, tenting
Tobacco Looper
S2, profile
| Tobacco Looper S2, dorsal, tenting | | Tobacco Looper S2, profile | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Butterflies & Moths (Lepidoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Owlet moth (:Noctuoidea Noctuidae Plusiinae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Tobacco Looper (Chrysodeixis argentifera) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S2, profile🔎 | ||||
Thank you Josh Martin (BioShots_JM) for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere ~14 - 16mm long. Another equisite moth in this genus. Very similar to C. eriosoma, but notice a little silver 's' flair on the forwing, underneath the other silver markings. The etymology of the latin name has a number of parts. The genus name of Chrysodeixis breaks down to 2 parts, "Chryso" meaning "Gold" & "deixis" meaning 'indicator". The specific name "argentifera" doesn't refer to the country Argentina, but rather "argent", -> "silver", & "fer", -> "bearer"; assuming this is refering to the silver streaks. As such, Gold-indicated Silver-bearing Moth is getting a bit long winded LOL. So we've used the common name, even though the caterpillar of this species eats far more than just tobacco plants. We have Australian native tobacco on Ellura, so it may well like them. | |||||
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