Diaphania hyalinata
This cute little moth was resting in our bathroom in Sao Paulo.
It is not a very usual moth to find over there, and I never knew much about it until last night when I was cropping this picture and decided to look it up.
My mother calls it “mariposa bundinha de pincel”, little brush butt moth, so I’ve always called it that, too. You have to look at it from the side to really see it, so here’s another picture:
It turns out that this little moth is quite a pest!
The common name is melonworm moth, and that is because their larvae love squash, pumpkin, and melon greens. In fact, that is all they eat. Except for when they run out of greens, then, they go for the rind of the fruits.
I prefer not to dwell on the damage that they cause, though. They are so cute, look at those shiny pearly wings! Besides, I don’t even like squash :p
Diaphania hyalinata by The Bug Lady, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Arthropod, beautiful, brush, butterfly, Insect, melonworm moth, moth, pearly, pest, Photographs
