This species was first described by Walsingham in 1907 and originally named Ereunetis flavistriata.[5] Edward Meyrick placed this species in the genus Erechthias in 1915.[4]
Description
Walsingham first described this species as follows:
Antennae yellowish white, with two small grey spots above before the apex. Palpi yellowish white, brush-like beneath ; the terminal joint very short. Head and Thorax yellowish white. Forewings yellowish white, indistinctly streaked with broken yellow lines along the fold, along the cell, and below the costa beyond the middle ; also sparsely speckled with black scales, especially beyond the middle ; a short blackish streak at the upturned apex runs to the end of the apical cilia and is joined by a slender golden brown streak along the base of the shining, white costal cilia ; terminal cilia whitish cinereous, with a blackish spot in their middle below the apex. Exp. al. 14 mm. Hindwings shining, pale golden yellowish, becoming white at the apex ; cilia pale yellowish grey. Abdomen and Legs yellowish white.[5]
Biology
Larvae have been recorded feeding on banana, coconut and other palms, Pandanus species, pineapple and sugarcane. The full-grown larva is about 12 to 15 mm.[citation needed]
The larvae of this species is regarded as a pest of sugarcane.[7] It has been described by O. H. Swezey as follows:
It is usually not particularly injurious as it customarily feeds on the dead and drying tissues of the leaf-sheaths of sugar cane; but when very numerous and on particularly soft varieties of cane the caterpillars do considerable damage eating of the epidermis, and also eat into the buds and destroy them, occasioning a good deal of loss where the cane is desired for cuttings to plant.[7]
^ abWalsingham, Thomas de Grey (1907). "Microlepidoptera". Fauna hawaiiensis; being the land-fauna of the Hawaiian islands. 1 (5): 469–751 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
