Badamia exclamationis

Badamia exclamationis (Fabricius, 1775)
Brown Awl
(one synonym : Papilio ladon Cramer, 1780)
COELIADINAE, HESPERIIDAE, HESPERIOIDEA

Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Badamia exclamationis
(Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

This Caterpillar is smooth and yellow, with various black markings, including a dorsal line, and a transverse band between each pair of segments. The head is yellow with two transverse black stripes. It lives on its food plant in a shelter made from a leaf, folded over and held with silk. It feeds on:

False Almond ( Terminalia catappa, COMBRETACEAE ),

Yellow Wood ( Terminalia oblongata, COMBRETACEAE ),

Australian Damson ( Terminalia seriocarpa, COMBRETACEAE ), as well as

Pongam ( Pongamia pinnata, FABACEAE ) and

Timor Liana ( Rhyssopterys timorensis, MALPIGHIACEAE ),

living in a partly folded leaf, open ended like a cup. The caterpillar grows to a length of about 5 cms.

It pupates in a partly folded leaf, often away from the food plant.

drawing by Pieter Cramer, listed as Papilio ladon,
Papilions exotiques des trois parties du monde l'Asie, l'Afrique et l'Amérique,
Volume 3 (1782), Plate CCLXXXIV, fig. G,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The male adult butterfly is dark brown with a series of white spots on each forewing. The females have only vestigial white spots.

(Photo: courtesy of Martin Purvis, Sydney)

The undersides are similar to the upper surfaces. The hindwings of both sexes are unusual, in having a recurve along the margin near the tornus. The wing span is about 5 cms.

The eggs are cream coloured and hemispherical. They are laid singly on young shoots of a food plant.

Samoa, 1986

The species is found across south-east Asia and the west Pacific, including

as well as in Australia in:

Victoria, and

The species is famous for its extensive migrations, southward some years, and northward in others. This butterfly species is also unique in having nocturnal migrations.