Africa Wild

Hampson's Salad. Mittonia hampsoni
Family: Pyralidae. Subfamily: Pyralinae

© Super Mongoose

© Super Mongoose
Marakele National Park, Bontle campsite's bathroom

Description
A robust species, dark brown with broad bright green markings; hindwing with short tail. Forewing 18-27 mm.

Distribution
Widespread in Africa. Cameroon, DRCongo, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Links: African Moths

Family Pterophoridae (Plume Moths)
The Pterophoridae, commonly known as Plume Moths, are a well known and easily recognized family. Small moth with simple antennae. Forewings and hindwings divided into two to four feathery plumes, 2-4 lobes in fore wing, and 3 lobes in hind wing (if divided). Colour cream to lighl brown. Legs long, slender, often with prominent spurs projecting outwards. Fragile, delicate appearance. Weak flyer. Rests with wings and legs spread out, wings held perpendicular to the slender body in the characteristic "T"-shaped position.

The subfamily Pterophorinae contains 19 genera in the region: Adaina, Agdistis, Amblyptilia, Cosmoclostis, Crombrugghia, Exelastis, Gypsochares, Hellinsia, Lantanophaga, Macrotinactis, Marasmarcha, Oxyptilus, Platyptilia, Pselnophorus, Pterophorus, Sphenarches, Stenoptilia, Titanoptilus, Trichoptilus

Orange Plume Moth Stenodacma wahlbergi, Pterophorus wahlbergi, Crombrugghia wahlbergi
Family: Pterophoridae. Subfamily: Pterophorinae.

© BluTuna
Garden Johannesburg

Description
Small (wingspan 14 mm), with orange body and wings, the latter divided into plumes with black fringes.

Distribution
Burundi, Cameroon, DRCongo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, La Reunion, Madagascar, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe

Links: African Moths

Plume Moth
Family: Pterophoridae. Subfamily: Pterophorinae.

© steamtrainfan
Gauteng

Family Thyrididae (Window Wings or Lattice Moths)
Mostly with clear windows in broad wings. Body and wings usually yellow, orange-yellow or brown. Wings, especially in clear areas, covered in network or lattice of lines and stripes. Larvae short, cylindrical and sparsely haired.

The subfamily Charideinae are a small group of about 37 species of Afrotropical, diurnal, narrow winged moths. With their metallic, aposematic colours and scanty resemblance to typical thyridids they were long included in the Zygaenidae, from which they were transferred by Minet (1991) (Dugdale et al., 1999) as a subfamily of the Thyrididae.

Gold Spotted Burnet Arniocera auriguttata
Family: Thyrididae. Subfamily: Charidienae

© Super Mongoose

© Super Mongoose

© Super Mongoose

© Super Mongoose
Marakele National Park

Description
Palpi upturned, erect. Antennae dilated, thickened at the end. In the hindwing veins forked. Forewing black, with blue-green gloss, with variable golden-yellow and blue spots. Red head, metallic blue-green body, legs with virmillion tibiae.

Distribution
Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Links: African Moths

Fire Grid Burnet Arniocera erythropyga
Family: Thyrididae. Subfamily: Charideinae

© Moggiedog
Kruger National Park

© Super Mongoose
Ndumo GR, KwaZulu-Natal

Description
12 mm. The forewing is black-edged, with three red bands (the outer one sometimes broken) on a metallic blue-green ground colour. The hindwing is pinkish red with a broad, marginal band of black. Head read, with black hair in male, red in female. Abdomen red.

Distribution
The Fire Grid Burnet is found in Zimbabwe and Malawi to Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa.

Biology
Arniocera erythropyga is a day-flying moth.

Links: African Moths

Family Cossidae (Goat Moths, Carpenter Moths)

Cossidae make up a family of mostly large miller moths. This family contains over 110 genera with almost 700 known species, they are nocturnal Lepidoptera found worldwide.
Medium to large moths, often very bulky. Grey, brown or white wings speckled with black. Forewings long and narrow. Their short curled antennae are often branched (comb-like) for about half their length, and they lack a proboscis. Many are twig, bark or leaf mimics, and Cossidae often have some sort of large marking at the tip of the forewing uppersides, conspicuous in flight but resembling a broken-off twig when the animals are resting.
Larvae are cream-coloured grubs, elongate, cylindrical and stout, with a large sclerotized shield over the prothorax. Most cossid caterpillars bore into the heartwood or roots of trees. Some species bore into reeds, and a few construct cases like bagworms. Larval development extends over years, the nutritive content of the host tree determining the size of adults. The long cylindrical pupae have rows of spines on the abdomen and protrude from the larval tunnel. The name 'goat moth' is derived from the strong unpleasant smell of larvae of certain species.
About 100 species are known from the region.

Inclusive Goat Moth, Leopard Goat Azygophleps inclusa
Family: Cossidae. Subfamily: Zeuzerinae

© BluTuna
Kruger National Park, Maroela camp

Description
Male antennae cup-shaped, those of female bipectinate (apically with gradually reducing pectin); forewing long, with rounded apex, with dense reticular pattern formed by transverse lines and spots; hindwing lightly coloured and uniform.

Distribution
Angola, Botswana, DRCongo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Habitat
Bushveld and subtropical forest.

Biology
Typical borer larvae. Larvae feed on Indigofera

Links: African Moths