It lives individually in a tubular made from a curled leaf of the foodplant. It is initially green turning brown in later instars, with white lines that later fragment into rows of white spots. The head is dark reddish brown with a dorsal cleft.

The adults of this species are black with a metallic blue shading toward the base of each wing. The forewings have several pale spots. Underneath, the wings have patches of orange on a dark brown background. The butterflies have a wingspan of about 3 cms.

The eggs are laid singly on a the underside the edge of leaf of a foodplant, and are round and flattened with about 30 ribs. They are pink and have a diameter of about 1 mm.

The species is found in

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby, Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp 90-91.

Peter S. Valentine & Stephen J. Johnson, The life history and distribution of Rachelia extrusa (C. & R. Felder) (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Trapezitinae) in Australia, The Australian Entomologist, Volume 31, Part 1 (March 2004), pp. 29-36.

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(updated 25 October 2009)