Puriri moth
| Puriri moth | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Hepialidae |
| Genus: | Aenetus |
| Species: | A. virescens |
| Binomial name | |
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Aenetus virescens (Doubleday, 1843) |
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| Synonyms | |
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The puriri moth (Aenetus virescens) is a moth of the family Hepialidae, endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. It is New Zealand's largest moth, with a wingspan of up to 150 mm. It is also called the ghost moth or pepetuna.
The moth spends the first five to six years of its life as a grub in a tree trunk (common host plants are the puriri tree (Vitex lucens) and putaputawētā (Carpodetus serratus), but puriri larva also inhabit non-native species such as Eucalyptus), with the last 48 hours of its life as a moth. Footage has been taken of a puriri moth chrysalis hatching over a period of one hour and forty minutes.
The puriri moth is easily identifiable by its large size and vivid forewing colouration. Adults exhibit sexual dimorphism. With a wingspan that averages 100mm (for males) and 150mm (for females), it is New Zealand's largest native winged insect. The forewings generally exhibit a range of bright greens, with patterning of brownish black in females and a white pattern in males. The hind wings are a pinkish colour. There is colour variation within the species, with some individuals exhibiting blue-green, bright yellow, brick-red or even albino wing colouration.
The moths are nocturnal forest-dwellers. In the past males frequently swarmed lights in areas inhabited by people, however with forest clearing, this has become less common.
Puriri moths are predated upon by birds, including kaka and moreporks (who tend to feed on the adult moths when they congregate around lights), native bats, cats and brushtail possums. The larva also are traditionally eaten by Māori, who flushed the caterpillars (known as ngutara) out of their tunnels with water.
The caterpillar stage may last up to six years. The adult moths emerge mostly from September through to November. Adults live only a few days at most, generally being most active at dusk and night time when they mate and lay eggs. The adults do not have any mouthparts and cannot feed, so are sustained only by larval food reserves.
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Wikipedia