Asterivora chatuidea facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Asterivora chatuidea
Male syntype specimen
Female syntype specimen
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Choreutidae
Genus:	Asterivora
Species:	A. chatuidea
Binomial name
Asterivora chatuidea (Clarke, 1926)
Synonyms
Simaethis chatuidea Clarke, 1926

The Asterivora chatuidea is a small moth that belongs to the Choreutidae family. It is a special kind of moth because it is found only in New Zealand. This means it is endemic to that country.

Discovering the Moth

This moth was first officially described in 1926 by a scientist named Charles E. Clarke. He studied 12 different moths that were collected in November. These moths were found in a place called Vauxhall, near Andersons Bay in Dunedin, New Zealand.

When Clarke first described the moth, he gave it the name Simaethis chatuidea. Many of the original moths he studied are now kept safely at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

What the Moth Looks Like

The Asterivora chatuidea is a small moth. The males have a wingspan of about 8 millimeters (which is less than half an inch). The females are a little bigger, with a wingspan of about 9 millimeters.

The head and body (thorax) of the moth are dark brownish-grey. They have tiny scales that look violet-white. Their antennae are black with white rings. The main part of their body (abdomen) is also dark brownish-grey, but the edges of its segments are white. It also has a few white scales near its end. Its legs are brownish-grey.

The front wings are a dark blue-violet color. They are somewhat rectangular. The top edge (costa) is slightly curved, and the tip (apex) is rounded. The outer edge (termen) is almost straight. There are three clear white spots on the top edge of the front wings. You can also see a light blue-violet line going across the wing, and some violet-white scales near the base. There's another line, sometimes double, that starts from the first white spot and another from the middle white spot. This line can be broken but often has a sharp bend in the middle. The outer part of the wing has scattered violet-white scales and a thin line near the edge.

The back wings are dark brownish-grey, and they get even darker towards the outside. There's a curved white stripe, sometimes double, that goes from the middle of the wing down to the bottom corner (tornus).

Where the Moth Lives

As mentioned before, this moth is only found in New Zealand. This makes it a unique part of New Zealand's wildlife.

What the Moth Eats

The young moths, called larvae, are leaf miners. This means they live inside the leaves of plants and eat the plant tissue from the inside. They create special patterns of damage on the leaves of their host plants.

Some of the plants that A. chatuidea larvae like to eat include:

• Helichrysum lanceolatum
• Olearia quinquevulnera
• Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum

Images for kids

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  Helichrysum lanceolatum, a larval host plant of A. chatuidea.