A rare, carnivorous moth

Some moths are easily overlooked, but special

October 2025

I was going to write something completely different for this blog, but something I did not think twice about this week turned out to be something special.

Hubby's birthday and the weather meant my end of September moth trapping became early October's. I nearly did not trap - I have conducted a year's worth of monthly trapping at this property now and I am not very good at getting up at dawn to check the trap. It was not clear if the weather would hold and where I trap moths on the deck was covered in scaffolding. However, spring is springing. There are buds on my new roses, hoverflies are appearing and I was curious if the moth world was quietly taking off, pardon the pun.

So, before I had breakfast and headed off to work, I, only somewhat diligently and wakefully, recorded the moths that had been attracted to the UV light overnight. There were more moths than last month, which is to be expected, but still not many, across 13 species. I did not really register that I had a new-to-me moth as part of those that had been drawn to the light. As I said, I was not really awake.

It was only a few day's later, when I logged back onto iNaturalist, that I saw that the moth had been identified by a moth expert with a Latin name I had not seen before, Isonomeutis restincta. iNaturalist lets you look at other people's photos of species when you are trying to identify what you saw and the markings looked right. Because I am curious and want to learn as much as possible, I then went looking for information about the species. A lot of native moth species do not have anything written about them, but there was a Wikipedia entry on this one. My book by Robert Hoare also mentioned it in passing. It is not known what its caterpillars eat, but it is theorised that, along with another closely related species, it eats scale insects. Take that in for a moment: a predatory, carnivorous moth.

What is even more amazing is that there were only two other sightings of this moth recorded on iNaturalist in Auckland, both in the Waitakeres. There were 22 across the whole of the country. That is less sightings than the rarest of our kiwi. Turns out the moth is classified as "At Risk - Naturally Uncommon" and it lives in only a few pockets across the North Island ("Range Restricted"). Mine was the first iNaturalist recording on the North Shore and it makes sense it would be here, because the other closely related carnivorous species is linked with beech trees, which can be found in the bush remnants around Beach Haven and Chatswood.

Do you know what it looks like, covered in dew on my deck fence?

Isonomeutis restincta

For a pretty interesting moth, it is easy to overlook. This is not a moth that would catch the eye in any way. Because I was avoiding scaffolding and leaning over damp furniture to get my photo, I have included the prettiest image I could find of the moth captured by fellow iNaturalist enthusiast, Joseph Knight, earlier this year near Kaeo, Northland. Most of the photos of the species are closer to my drab example.

Isonomeutis restincta by Joseph Knight, January 2025

Because I have encountered a few really interesting moths here in Birkenhead in the last year, I have decided to create a new category for the blog, Amazing moths, and I will blog more about the interesting moths that you can find in Auckland. I do not have a lot of knowledge about moths -I have only had a moth trap since the end of 2023 and I honestly could not tell a caddisfly from a moth when I got it. Who knew that lots of other insects would find their way into a moth trap? I didn't. Up until now I thought all New Zealand butterfly and moth larvae ate plants. Did anyone else know that wasn't true? No one is really writing about moths in New Zealand outside the science community and whilst I do not know much, I'll share what I learn with you.