Altona or Yellow Sedge-Skipper TRAPEZITINAE, HESPERIIDAE, HESPERIOIDEA | (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:
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.
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.
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.
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 :
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.
caterpillar | butterflies | Lepidoptera | moths | caterpillar |
(updated 27 November 2004, 5 January 2024)