Painted Pine Moth - Orgyia australis
Family Lymantriidae
This page contains information about Painted Pine Moths that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Caterpillar length 30mm
- This moth also known as White spotted Tussock Moth.
- We found this Painted Pine Moth Caterpillar feeding on Camellia flower on late Spring. The caterpillar is hairy, with four tussocks of hair on its back make it look like a toothbrush. Its head is bright red in colour.
- We took it home to see how it will look like when it became a moth. We bring along with some Camellia flowers and leaves as its food. We put the caterpillar in a jar with those flowers leaves. The jar was covered by a cloth and tighten by rubber bend. We cleaned the jar everyday. We put some more flowers leaves in the jar everyday. We found that the caterpillar feed only on the Camellia flowers and not on the leaves. To keep the flowers fresh, we put them in our refrigerator.
- Male, wingspan 25mm.
When we found the caterpillar, it was 20mm in length. After a few days, the caterpillars moulted, lt look the same except larger, it became 30mm in length. After another week. it pupated in a woven cocoon. The pupa is covered with the some hairs of the caterpillar as well. These hairs may cause irritation if contact, or if they were released to blow about. So we handled it very carefully. After the caterpillar became a cocoon, we do not need to clean the jar, just wait and see.
After another two weeks, it became a moth. The moths is medium in size and with hairy body. It holds their board wings like roots over their abdomen at rest. There are the white and brown blue patterns on its wings. From its antenna we can tell it is a male. Moths usually active at night, so we opened the jar and put it in our backyard at night. Next day in the morning we found it had gone.
To raise caterpillars is fun, especially if we find an unknown caterpillar. It is easily too. We have raised some caterpillars such as the Wanderer, the Crow , the Orchard Butterflies and the Common Anthelid Moths. You may like to raise one too. Try it yourself next time when you find a caterpillar. Email me if you successfully raise one or if you find any problem.
The Wingless Female
On 2004 late summer, we found another caterpillar on Black Wattle Acacia, which is the same as the Painted Pine Moth caterpillar above but larger in size.
- Length 35mm
- The caterpillar was densely covered with golden yellow hairs. It had a pair of long black tufts of hairs at the head which pointed forwards like horns. Like most tussock moth caterpillar, it had four tufts of creamy yellow hairs on the back, just like tufts of bristles in a toothbrush. On both sides near the first two tufts, there were two tufts of silver white hairs. It also had a tuft of creamy yellow hairs on the back near the end of the abdomen.
- The caterpillar moved slowly and fed on the Black Wattle leaves. Two days later, under one of the wattle leaf, it found a suitable place to make its cocoon. It first used silk to curve the leaf to make a good cover. Then it used more silks to make the loosely-spun cocoon. It used most of its hairs to cover its cocoon. We knew these hairs can cause urticaria if touched, or if they are released to blow about. So we handle the cocoon with extra care.
- Wingless female, body length 20mm
- About 10 days later, to our surprise, a small fellow came out from the cocoon. It did not look like a moth. It was creamy white in colour, look like a short sausage covered with dense hairs. Examined it more carefully, we realized that it was a wingless moth. We then checked the reference books and found that the Painted Pine Moth females are wingless.
- Actually the 'wingless' Painted Pine Moth females do have wings. Check carefully at the above second picture, we saw the tiny front wing and hind wing.
- Eggs, 1.5mm diameter Caterpillars just hatched, length 4mm
- Something more interesting were still to happen. The female Painted Pine Moth just stated with its cocoon and did nothing. Three to four days after it came out from cocoon, it laid eggs on the cocoon. It laid eggs covered most of the cocoon and then it dropped on to the floor and laid some more eggs. The eggs were white in colour. Total number of eggs from one to three hundreds.
- We did not cover the jar which contain the moth for a wingless moth will not fly away. Anyway, we did not think the female moth had chance to mate and so the eggs were unfertilized. We did not expect caterpillars would hatch from those eggs.
- To our big surprise, three days later, caterpillars came out from those eggs!! In fact, all those eggs turned into caterpillars, included those on the floor.
- The young caterpillars were dark brown in colour with some segments in creamy white. They had long hairy covered their body. Since their females are wingless, it is believed that this species are distributed by the wind-borne of those young long hair caterpillars. (Note: later we found on some reference that some of their females are fully winged.)
Male Caterpillar on Acacia
- Few weeks later after we found the larger female Painted Pine Moth caterpillar, we found the smaller caterpillar and it made its cocoon when its length is 30mm. We knew it would be a male Painted Pine Moth moth.
- Length 20mm
- Few days later it spun the cocoon in exactly the same style but smaller in size.
- As their common name imply, they feed on pine tree. Although they do not make big damage on the pine tree, their hairs course urticaria to the pine industry operators. They are considered as pest to the pine industry.
- From the reference information, Painted Pine Moth caterpillars originally feed on Wattle Acacia, and most other garden plants as well. They also have the common name Painted Acacia Moth.
