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Project Noah Nature School
Paralaea porphyrinaria
Shaped like an upturned sailing dinghy and coloured with attractive vanished timber tones with simple, clear, red-orange veins. A small tuft on the head would form the knuckle on the bow of a dinghy. Under wings revealed cream with black near outer margin. If this was a bit bigger I could turn it over, rig it and go for a sail.
Attracted to security lighting at night at the local school.
An unusual resting posture for a geometrid, this moth develops from an attractive green caterpillar with flat red shields for a face. It eats eucalyptus. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/193...
family: GEOMETRIDAE
subfamily: Ennominae
tribe: Nacophorini
http://spatial.ala.org.au/?q=lsid:%22urn...
Spotted on Apr 22, 2014
Submitted on Apr 23, 2014
3 Comments
Thanks Mark Ridgway, I have school friends and some family members in Australia...now I have a REAL reason to go visit :)
Sukanya you would be amazed if you saw the eucalyptus in it's natural state. Overseas they become pests because the local life is not able to use them and their natural pests were left at home. Here wildlife has evolved with the trees so an Australian eucalyptus is a home to literally thousands of creatures. It is a very strange experience for me to see gum tree forests to the horizon in southern India and hardly a sign of life within. Only an occasional gaur or a few macaques at ground level.
As a child I remember someone telling me that the Eucalyptus tree is one tree on which no insect feeds because of the oil...so glad I read your write up...