The Kernel Grub or Macadamia Kernal Grub (Assara seminivale) is a species of snout moths

Pyralidae

The Pyralidae or snout moths are a family of Lepidoptera in the ditrysian superfamily Pyraloidea. In many classifications, the grass moths are included in the Pyralidae as a subfamily, making the combined group one of the largest families in the Lepidoptera...

 in the genus Assara

Assara

Assara is a genus of small moths belonging to the snout moth family . They are part of the tribe Phycitini within the huge snout moth subfamily Phycitinae.-References:...

. It was described by Turner in 1904, and is known from Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. There are also records for Sikkim

Sikkim

Sikkim is a landlocked Indian state nestled in the Himalayan mountains...

, Tonkin

Tonkin

Tonkin , also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam, south of China's Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces, east of northern Laos, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin. Locally, it is known as Bắc Kỳ, meaning "Northern Region"...

, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...

 and Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

, but these need verification.

The wingspan

Wingspan

The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

 is 13-21 mm. Adults have dark brown forewings with a black mark half way along the costa, and a black tip. The hindwings are fawn with dark veins.

The larvae feed on the nuts of Macademia species (including Macadamia integrifolia

Macadamia integrifolia

Macadamia integrifolia is a tree in the Proteaceae family, native to Queensland in Australia. Common names include Macadamia Nut, Bauple Nut, Queensland Nut or Nut Oak....

), the seeds of Mangifera indica

Mangifera indica

Mangifera indica is a species of mango in the Anacardiaceae family. It is found in the wild in India and cultivated varieties have been introduced to other warm regions of the world...

and fruit of Heritiera littoralis

Heritiera littoralis

Heritiera littoralis, the looking-glass mangrove is a large tree with wing shaped nuts, which is most easily recognised by the silvery scales on the underside of its leaves, which therefore appear green from top and white from below, although Litsea mellifera A.C. Smith , has the same type of leaves....

. They can only access the kernel when the shell has been previously damaged by another insect or when a nut has an open micropyle. Numerous larvae may be found in a single nut. Pupation takes place within the nut.