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Project Noah Nature School
Tortricidae
Strange little cases built with a few offset chambers. About 12mm long overall. Several were found on a single callistemon plant always at the tips of a stem. Still to add pictures of the rest of this plant as they are so very similar in appearance to the budding tips. There was also another species with rounded nut-like appearance part way along the stems (previous spotting) also a brilliant camouflage.
In an outer suburban back yard.
Very interesting because this activity is similar to casemoths or bagworms but in an entirely different family - Tortricidae. Yet to confirm species... Spilonota seems to be the genus which indulges in this weird behaviour. Tortricidae, Olethreutinae, Eucosmini, SPILONOTA constrictana (Walker, 1881) Portable Case of Larva http://www1.ala.org.au/gallery2/v/Tortri... Here's one found last year on a different species of callistemon http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/122... UPDATE: The references to CSIRO; Tortricidae have disappeared. There are now pupal images on Lepidoptera Butterfly House under HYPERTROPHIDAE which seem to reflect this type of pupal activity.
Spotted on Jan 29, 2015
Submitted on Jan 29, 2015
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