#eudocima

Common Fruit-piercing Moth (Eudocima phalonia), family Erebidae, Cape York, QLD, Australia

As the name would suggest, fruit piercing moths pierce fruits with a barbed proboscis to suck up that sweet juice.

Eudocima salaminia - Green fruit sucking moth

There’s certainly been an absolute flood of Fruit-piercing Moths - adults and caterpillars -  in the FB group I admin. It must be a very good year for Achaea and Eudocima species up in Queensland, if you get them mobbing oranges and fighting among themselves for access to unattended beercans. 

Anyway, this particular caterpillar was spotted by Ashleigh Miller‎ at the Sunshine Coast. The diet of the caterpillars includes the Coral Tree, and various vines in the unrelated Menispermaceae. The adults are an absolute menace to fruit, including Bananas,Lychees, and Longans, piercing the rind with their strong proboscis in order to suck the juice. The hole allows the entry of fungi and bacteria which cause the fruit to rot prematurely.The moth feeds at night, and can only be kept away from your fruit trees with the use of fine-mesh netting. Light traps are useless, as this species is not attracted to light.

The adult moths have mottled fawn forewings, and vivid yellow, black and orange markings on the hindwings and underwings. The also have small blue patches in the labial palps, but you need a good close-up of the head to see that.  

‎Photo by Mark Nalder‎ in Brisbane.