Yeperenye / Yipirinya

Alice Springs Fauna •

Alice Springs MothsAustralian Striped Hawk Moth (Hyles livornicoides) Bag-shelter Moth & Processionary Caterpillar Chasmina pulchra (White Beauty) Cossid Moth (Endoxyla leucomochla) Godart’s Hawkmoth (Agrius godarti) Helicoverpa punctigera (Australian Fruitworm) Laced Day-Moth (Ipanica cornigera) Leptocneria binotata Mocis alterna (Bean Looper Moth) Owlet Moth (Eudesmeola lawsoni) Sameodes cancellalis (Banded Pearl) Yeperenye / Yipirinya

Alice Springs is the home of the Yeperenye and the Australian Striped Hawk Moth (Hyles livornicoides). Yeperenye is the larvae stage of the Yeperenye caterpillar.

Yeperenye (and the alternative spelling of Yipirinya), in the local Arrernte aboriginal language is also spelt as Ayepe-arenye — being pronounced Yep-ah-rin-ya.

The following image of the Australian Striped Hawk Moth (Hyles livornicoides) was photographed at the entrance of the Alice Springs Yeperenye Shopping Centre.

Whilst Hyles livornicoides can be found in New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia, it is here in Alice Springs that it is a sacred totemic ancestral being for the Arrernte people of Alice Springs, Central Australia.

It has been said that the caterpillar needs a particular kind of rain to emerge. They then spend all their time feeding on a sticky groundcover called tar-vine, after which they go underground where they cocoon to emerge as moths.

Following some of the instar phases of the Hyles livornicoides caterpillar (feeding on (Boerhavia coccinea).

More information in our Fauna > Insects > Moths > Australian Striped Hawk Moth.

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• Scientific classification
• Kingdom: Animalia
• Phylum: Arthropoda
• Subphylum: Hexapoda
• Class: Insecta
• Informal: Pterygotes
• Order: Lepidoptera
• Unranked: Ditrysia
• Superfamily: Sphingoidea
• Family: Sphingidae
• Subfamily: Macroglossinae
• Genus: Hyles
• Species: Hyles livornicoides

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Alice Springs MothsAustralian Striped Hawk Moth (Hyles livornicoides) Bag-shelter Moth & Processionary Caterpillar Chasmina pulchra (White Beauty) Cossid Moth (Endoxyla leucomochla) Godart’s Hawkmoth (Agrius godarti) Helicoverpa punctigera (Australian Fruitworm) Laced Day-Moth (Ipanica cornigera) Leptocneria binotata Mocis alterna (Bean Looper Moth) Owlet Moth (Eudesmeola lawsoni) Sameodes cancellalis (Banded Pearl) Yeperenye / Yipirinya

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