Location: Australia (Sydney Basin)
April 2, 2011 10:50 pm
My daughter found this wandering around my backyard. I’ve seen these before but always assumed they were a cocoon, rather than a sort of shell. This one has been around the backyard for at least a month as I have seen it hanging from trees, then mysteriously vanishing.
I also have video of it checking out the camera
This is a Bagworm in the family Psychidae, and we quickly identified it as a Large Bagworm or Saunder’s Case Moth, Metura elongatus, on the Brisbane Insect Website. The caterpillar forms a silken case containing plant material from its food plant that it remains in, eventually pupating inside of the case. The adult female is wingless and she never leaves her case, using pheromones to attract a mate. The Butterfly House website has images of the entire life cycle.
Thanks for that, my daughter was fascinated (so was I) to see
photographs of the adult moth.