Trapezites iacchoides Waterhouse, 1903
Silver-studded Ochre
TRAPEZITINAE,   HESPERIIDAE,   HESPERIOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Trapezites iacchoides
male
(Photo: courtesy of Martin Purvis, Sydney, New South Wales)

This Caterpillar hatches from an egg laid singly on a leaf of a foodplant. The caterpillar is greenish-grey with faint longitudinal dark lines. It has a brown head with two pale spots and two pale lines. The Caterpillar constructs a shelter at the base of its foodplant from dead leaves and silk. It lives in its shelter by day and emerges at night to feed. Its food plant is :

  • Spiny Headed Mat Rush ( Lomandra longifolia, ASPARAGACEAE ).

    The caterpillar pupates in its shelter. The pupa is pale brown with dark spots, and covered in white waxy powder. It is oriented head upward.

    Trapezites iacchoides
    (Photo: courtesy of Museums Victoria)

    The adult butterfly is dark brown with a series of translucent white and yellow patches on each fore wing. The hind wings each have a broad yellow band. Underneath, the fore wings are similar to their upper surfaces, but each hind wing is grey with up to nine white spots, each outlined in black. The wing span is about 3 cms.

    Trapezites iacchoides
    underside
    (Photo: courtesy of Museums Victoria)

    The species occurs in the mountains and along the coast of :

  • Queensland,
  • New South Wales, and
  • Victoria.


    Further reading :

    Michael F. Braby,
    Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp 94-95.

    Gustavus Athol Waterhouse,
    Descriptions and notes of Australian Hesperidae, chiefly Victorian,
    Victorian Naturalist,
    Volume 20, Part 4 (1903), pp. 56-57.


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    (updated 18 November 2009, 5 January 2024)