The perfect insect appears from November till February, and frequents forest. According to my experience it is rather a local species, although plentiful where found. Mr. Meyrick states that it is "very common in bush, from August to February, and in May."[32]
"Face with a tuft or hardly projecting scales. Palpi moderate, porrected, rough-scaled. Antennæ in male bi-pectinated, apex simple. Thorax glabrous beneath. Posterior tibiæ with all spurs present. Fore-wings with areole simple. Hind-wings with vein 8 anastomosing with cell from near base to beyond middle."--(Meyrick.) (See Plate II., figs. 35 and 36, neuration of _Asaphodes megaspilata_.)
We have five species of this genus in New Zealand.
(_Aspilates abrogata_, Walk. 1075. _Fidonia (?) servularia_, Gn., E. M. M. v. 43. _Thyone abrogata_, Meyr., Trans. N. Z. Inst. xvi. 61. _Asaphodes abrogata_, Meyr., ib. xviii. 184.)
This species has occurred at Murimutu in the North Island; and in the South Island at Kekerangu, Christchurch, Castle Hill, Dunedin, and Invercargill.
The expansion of the wings is 1 inch. _All the wings are ochreous with pale brown markings._ The fore-wings have a conspicuous dot in the middle, _a wavy transverse line a little beyond the middle, another line just before the termen, and a brown shading on the termen broader near the apex of the wing_. The hind-wings have a brown central dot and two transverse lines. The cilia of all the wings are brownish.
This species varies considerably in the distinctness of the brown markings, and there is occasionally a transverse line near the base of the fore-wings.
The perfect insect appears in February and March, and frequents open country, often at elevations of from 2,000 to 4,000 feet above the sea-level. It is, I think, rather a local species, though abundant where found. I met with it in considerable numbers on the chalk range near Kekerangu in the Marlborough Province.
(_Asaphodes siris_, Hawth., Trans. N. Z. Inst. xxix. 283.)
This interesting little species was discovered near Wellington by Mr. Hawthorne.
The expansion of the wings is about 7/8 inch. The fore-wings are dull ochreous; there is a small curved brown patch near the base; then a pale band, followed by a very broad brown central band, paler in the middle; there is a very sharp projection on the outer edge of the central band, a conspicuous black dot in the centre of the wing, and a series of minute black dots on the termen. The hind-wings are pale ochreous, with a faint central transverse line.