The adult moth has dark brown forewings with a red or yellow diagonal bar and a red hind margin. The hindwings are dark brown, each with an red or yellow mark near the middle, and red or yellow scalloping around the edge. The whole moth has a blue iridescent sheen. The moths have a wingspan of about 5 cms.

(Specimen: courtesy of the Macleay Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney)

The undersides are similar to the upper surfaces, but have no red markings.

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Bill Farnsworth, Innisfail, Queensland)

The forewing pattern is rather similar to that of the butterfly Chaetocneme porphyropis, which lives in the same area, although it is not clear if the mimicry is accidental.

The species is found in

close-up of head
(Photo: courtesy of Bill Farnsworth, Innisfail, Queensland)

Further reading :

Ian F.B. Common,
Moths of Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1990, pl. 10.11, p. 366.

Peter Hendry,
Gems of the North
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club, Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 52 (March 2009), pp.19-21.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 66.

K. Jordan & Walter Rothchild,
Some new forms of the genera Bizarda and Miliona,
Novitates Zoologicae,
Volume 2 (1895), p. 464, No. 3, and also plate 7, fig. 5.

Graham J. McDonald,
Moths of Tropical North Queensland,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 75 (December 2014), pp. 7-12, Figure 8.

W.J. Rainbow,
Records of the Australian Museum, Issue 2 (September 1908).

Buck Richardson,
Mothology,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2008, p. 15.

Paul Zborowski and Ted Edwards,
A Guide to Australian Moths, CSIRO Publishing, 2007, p. 138.

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(updated 8 November 2010, 10 August 2024)