Hesperilla flavescens Waterhouse, 1927
Altona or Yellow Sedge-Skipper
TRAPEZITINAE,   HESPERIIDAE,   HESPERIOIDEA
  
Don Herbison-Evans,
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

This Caterpillar is smooth and green, with a dark dorsal line. The head is brownish with a black 'V' mark. The caterpillar feeds on various species of Sword Grass (CYPERACEAE), especially:

  • Chaffy Saw Sedge ( Gahnia filum ).

    Hesperilla flavescens
    pupa in shelter
    (Photo: courtesy of Ken Walker, Altona, Victoria)

    The caterpillar constructs a shelter out of several blades of grass joined together with silk, in which it rests by day. The caterpillar emerges to feed at night. In due course, the caterpillar pupates in its shelter.

    Hesperilla flavescens
    (Picture: courtesy of CSIRO: Ecosystem Sciences)

    The adult butterfly is dark brown fading to yellow at the base of each wing. Each wing also has a yellow patch, and each fore wing also has a number of small white spots. The males have a dark line across part of each forewing.

    Hesperilla flavescens
    underside
    (Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

    Underneath, the wings are fawn. There are brown and yellow patches under the forewings, and there is an arc of outlined white spots under each hindwing. The wing span is about 3 cms.

    Hesperilla flavescens
    egg, magnified
    (Photo: courtesy of Ken Walker, Kangaroo Island, South Australia)

    The eggs are off-white and shaped like a dome with a flat top, and have about 50 microscopic ribs. The eggs have a diameter of about 1.5 mm. They are laid singly under the leaves of a foodplant.

    The species is found as two sub-species in small areas of south-eastern Australia :

  • flavescens near Altona and Ararat, in Victoria, and
  • flavia Waterhouse, 1941, in South Australia.
  • The latter is considered to be in danger of extinction, and a recovery plan has been proposed for the subspecies.

    Hesperilla flavescens
    underside
    (Photo: courtesy of Ken Walker, Altona, Victoria)


    Further reading :

    Michael F. Braby,
    Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp. 155-156.

    Gustavus Athol Waterhouse,
    Australian Hesperiidae. Part I. Notes and descriptions of new forms,
    Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
    Volume 52 (1927), p. 279, and also Plate 26, figs. 17, 18.


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    (updated 27 November 2004, 5 January 2024)