Plume Moths of Victoria – Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club

At our August 2026 meeting Donald Hobern spoke about plume moths in the family Pterophoridae. This is a relatively poorly known group with only a few people conducting research outside of the agriculture and horticulture areas. Most, but not all, plume moths have longitudinal splits in their wings (1 in the forewing, 2 in the hindwing). When settled, their wings are rolled and held outstretched from their body. forming a ‘T’. The distinctive feature for this group is a row of venous scales on the underside of the wing. Beware of look-alikes which may also hold their wings almost in a ‘T’ but do not have the venous wing scales. Ref Castlemaine Naturalist Sept 2026

During his talk all the members of this family that have been recorded in Victoria were discussed along with the annotations to the original images which you see here as a guide to their identification. This page has been established with his permission to assist our members and others record and identify the plume moths that they may come across in Victoria. Of course, there are other species that occur outside Victoria which may one day be found here. Let us know if you find one so that we can include it here.

With the exception of Wheeleria spilodactylus which is Donald Hobern’s image, all images are from various citizen science platforms as shown on the image. The majority are from iNaturalist.ala.org. All images remain copyright of the photographer, and the source of the image is shown on the image.