This is a cream-striped owl ooth (Cyligramma latona) at Raptors View Wildlife Estate, Limpopo, South Africa. The larvae of this moth feed on various Acacia, Entada abyssinica, and Malus pumila (cultivated apple). They are found throughout Africa, including Madagascar.

I am also including a pearl-spotted owlet (Glaucidium perlatum) for its own example of eye mimicry. You may have noticed this, it is basically mimicking its own eyes, known as auto-mimicry. As part of the genus Glaucidium, or pygmy owls, they are commonly referred to as ‘owlets’ due to their diminutive size. Pearl-spotted owlets are brownish and heavily spotted white, with two distinct black false ‘eyes’ at the back of their head.

This is a great example of mimicry, which has evolved a number of times in the Lepidoptera, as well as many other animal groups. It starts with a small spot that increases survival, and so the frequency of the spot genes increase as a result. Once present, the spot evolves fairly quickly over generations to look like eyes because the closer to eyes the phenotype becomes, the more frequent the genes become in the population.