At last, there they are! Nine months after I caught the female in the Dzalanyama forest in Malawi, the first moths are finally emerging. Given the long egg stage (approximately five weeks), the slow growth of the caterpillars (more then three months) and the fairly long pupal stage (another four months), it's obvious that this species has only one flight per year. I'm still searching for the name. It might be Phiala fuscodorsata (thanks RR for showing me this one). It's the only species I've seen so far with the extra patch of black scales near the basis of the fore wings. Not that I'm very confident this is the correct name. There are an awful lot of Phiala species and many of them look more or less the same. All of them are relatively small moths, all pure white, creamy white or grayish white with a variable amount of black markings on the upper side of the wings. Even on species level there is a lot of variation. Some moths can have a lot of black scales, while on other moths of the same species the black is almost entirely absent. On top of that the entire monkey moth family (Eupterotidae) is poorly studied. It is very likely that at least some, if not many of the Phiala will turn out to be synonyms for the same species. The wingspan of this particular species is around five centimeter, with little difference between males and females.
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| Phiala sp. male - Origin: Malawi |
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| Phiala sp. female - Origin: Malawi |
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| Phiala sp. female - Origin: Malawi |
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| Phiala sp. male - Origin: Malawi |