The adaptation is thought to be a response to specific environmental pressures such as scattered food resources, lack of predation, high winds, and low temperatures that elicit loss of flight.

[1][3] An entomologist at the University of Bristol described most larvae of this genus as generalist feeders that eat decaying leaf tissue and generally hide in webby frass structures they make themselves.

[4] At 20 °C in the laboratory, specimens stayed larvae for 2–20 weeks and remained in pupa form for 2–8, a range in development time indicative of a number of species being kept together in the study.

[4] The larvae have been collected on a wide variety of host plants (most of them endemic to Hawaiʻi) including maile (Alyxia oliviformis), paʻiniu (Astelia argyrocoma), ʻākōlea (Athyrium microphyllum), Carex spp., lapalapa (Cheirodendron platyphyllum), pilo (Coprosma elliptica), koi (Coprosma kauensis), ʻukiʻuki (Dianella sandwicensis), uluhe (Dicranopteris linearis), Dryopteris spp., naʻenaʻe ʻula (Dubautia raillardioides), Elaphoglossum spp., manono (Hedyotis terminalis), kakaemoa (Melicope clusiifolia), ʻōhiʻa lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha), kōlea (Myrsine punctata), kōpiko (Psychotria spp.

), sawtooth blackberry (Rubus argutus), hoi kuahiwi (Smilax melastomifolia), pūkiawe (Styphelia tameiameiae), and ʻohelo kau laʻau (Vaccinium calycinum).