The Ivy Leafroller is a brown moth mottled with shades of brown and grey. The females have bolder pattern of dark brown and light brown patches, while males are more plain brown. Females aer larger than the male. When at rest the wings are held curved downwards.
The larvae are yellow green with a white head. It has four white stripes on the head, giving it the common name of 'four eyes'.
This moth is a pest of fruit plants and garden ornamentals including cotoneaster, honeysuckle, apricot, blackberry, strawberry, citrus, macadamia and avocado
The adult moths grow to 10-12 mm in length with a wingspan to 27mm. Larvae grow to about 25mm. They are found in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
Hari Om
ReplyDeleteHad LOADS of these at my place in Sydney... being northern suburbs there would have been plenty of the plants mentioned and in my own yard were scented geraniums and lillipillis... they are very pretty.
Hope you are getting slightly more temperate temperatures Mimsie!!! YAM xx
We too have some of the plants mentioned but fortunately none of these moths.
DeleteOur temps are still 'up there' Today 37C and none below 32C though to next Monday. This is indeed summer in Perth!!
This is very similar to the moths I most often see around Adelaide, but ours are larger, so they must be a different type. So many different types.
ReplyDeleteThere are dozens of different moths but most of ours seem reasonably small except the "Christmas moth" which is huge compared with the others. They are very seasonal though as you really do only see them around in December. They are particularly pretty.
DeleteYes, as your tag says, they ARE too pretty to be pests.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of something that happened years ago when our older son was only about two years old or so. My parents, aunt, and cousin were visiting us, and one day, we went to the lake to walk, where we saw quite a few oh-so-serious rangers walking around the area, inspecting the trees. As it turned out, they were hunting and killing gypsy moths, because they were causing a LOT of damage in the area. Well, our son found a really pretty larva, which he wanted to keep as a "pet", so we brought it home in a jar for him. Yep, you guessed it. Larry the larva was a gypsy moth.
I had to laugh at your story. I actually did something similar when I was a child. I went somewhere with the folks and I was into silkworms in those days. I found a particularly pretty type of caterpillar (pink with hairs on it) and took a couple home. They escaped and a few days later dad was wondering what was chewing on the leaves of his potplants!! I didn't say a word and fortunately not a lot of damage was done. We never saw a sign of the caterpillars again thank goodness.
DeleteAmazing photos, thank you so much for sharing. Warm greetings from Montreal, Canada.
ReplyDeleteHi Linda. Thanks for popping in and do call again.
DeleteWish I could acknowledge the photos as mine but they're not. I find them when researching the different creatures, mainly on Wikipedia.
Return greetings from very hot Perth (37ºC today).