Ecology Category: Invertebrates
The puriri moth (Aenetus virescens) is a species of moth of the family Hepialidae.
It is also commonly called the ghost moth or pepetuna.
This moth is endemic to the North Island of New Zealand.
It is New Zealand’s largest moth, with a wingspan of up to 150 mm.
It spends the first five to six years of its life as a grub in a tree trunk (common host plants are the puriri tree (Vitex lucens) and putaputawētā (Carpodetus serratus), but puriri larva also inhabit non-native species such as Eucalyptus), with the last 48 hours of its life as a moth.
Image courtesy of Windy Hill Sanctuary.
Source: Wikipedia