Big Moths South Australia

Bogong moths belong to the family noctuidae and are well known in south eastern australia for their mass migration in spring.

Big moths south australia. The forewings are reddish brown with slightly darker eye spot in the centre. In some years they have descended upon cities such as sydney and canberra in their thousands causing disruption around outdoor sports grounds and to air conditioning plants. The bogong moth agrotis infusa is a temperate species of night flying moth notable for its biannual long distance seasonal migrations towards and from the australian alps similar to the diurnal monarch butterfly. Around half of these have been scientifically named.

The helena gum moth is an attractive large moth from eastern australia with a wingspan of about 15 cm. Nicknamed the rain moth farmers in the upper south east of south australia are hopeful the appearance of large numbers of the insects might be a sign of things to come. Not by a long way. A few butterflies were then subsequently documented for the first time in south australia in 1874 and by 1875 the butterflies were being noted in many places in south australia including adelaide.

By 1878 the butterfly was quite common around adelaide and even at blinman in the north flinders ranges the butterflies were very common during. An ultraviolet light and the bright mercury vapour lights to be found on certain roads will attract even more numbers. Give all people the chance to see some of australias rarely observed biodiversity treasures. Australia has around 22 000 species of moths.

Few moths are seen flying during the day in south australia but on suitable warm nights an outside light without moon shine can attract many local moths. Australia is certainly the place to be for moths though apparently we have something between 20000 and 30000 different types of moths here compared with just 2500 or so recorded species in the uk. Common moths found in suburban gardens include the impatiens hawk moth theretra oldenlandiae pale brown hawk moth t. During the autumn and winter it is found in southern queensland western new south wales western victoria and also in south and western australia.

The largest ever hercules moth was discovered in innisfail approximately 110km south of kuranda. Australian moths online does not include images of all described species and deliberately excludes species that have not been described. So you wont be surprised to hear that the rain moth is not australias biggest moth. Many australian species also occur in south east asia.

Hercules moth coscinocera hercules the biggest moth in the world hails from none other than tropical north queensland. The almighty hercules moth has a whopping wing span of 27 centimetres.