But the latter population, widely isolated as it seems, may just as well be a colonial era introduction, as may be the case for the records from Australia (beyond Wallacea, as seen from its core range) and northwest British India (beyond the Himalayas).

Finally there are of course the records from England and other European localities; in brief, outside its contiguous range the moth mainly occurs along the historical East Indiaman trade route.

However, this moth tends to occur ephemerally outside its presumed core region; in temperate and even in subtropical Europe for example the species does not seem to have established a self-sustaining population and may in fact for all practical purposes be considered absent.

[3] Larvae have also been recorded to eat the eggs of the bed bug Cimex hemipterus, a species known as major vector for disease (eventually determined to be hepatitis B).

Considering the original data, insectivory of P. pictalis caterpillars may be a seasonal phenomenon, meaning that they would need to be deployed in numbers for a few weeks at the start of the wettest time of year, the resultant moth population immediately being suppressed or sterilized.