Philodoria costalis Swezey

Makaha Philodoria Moth (Philodoria costalis)

This species was described in 1934; it is known only from the forests of the Makaha Ridge at elevations of about 915 m above sea level on the western side of Mt. Ka’ala on the island of O’ahu, Hawaiian Islands.

The species reaches a wingspan of about 0,7 to 0,8 cm; the head, the thorax and the abdomen are tawny brown; the forewings are tawny brown and bear orange-colored patches.

The species is known to have mined the leaves of endemic māmaki species (Pipturus sp.); the sole description of its biology is the following sentence.:

The larvae form “oval brown cocoons on the surface of the leaves ….” (Swezey, 1934: 525.)” [1]

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The species was not recorded during recent field work and might be extinct. [2]

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[1] Elwood C. Zimmerman: Insects of Hawaii 9; Microlepidoptera. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1978
[2] Shigeki Kobayashi; Chris A. Johns; Akito Y. Kawahara: Revision of the Hawaiian endemic leaf-mining moth genus Philodoria Walsingham (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae): its conservation status, host plants and descriptions of thirteen new species. Zootaxa 4944(1): 1-715. 2021

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edited: 18.03.2021