''Kiwaia pharetria'' is a species of

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

in the family Gelechiidae. It was described by Edward Meyrick in 1885. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

is 13–17 mm. The forewings are whitish-ochreous, obscurely irrorated with brownish-ochreous, tending to form streaks on the veins, sometimes a more distinct apical streak and sometimes a few scattered black scales, also tending to accumulate on the veins. There are three small black discal spots, sometimes almost obsolete, the first before the middle, the second on the fold obliquely before the first and the third beyond the middle. The apical portion of the costa and hindmargin are obscurely dotted with black. The hindwings are whitish-grey. Larvae feed on '' Carmichaelia'' species.

References

Kiwaia Moths described in 1886 Moths of New Zealand Endemic fauna of New Zealand Taxa named by Edward Meyrick Endemic moths of New Zealand {{Gnorimoschemini-stub