By day it rests in a shelter of silk and leaves at the base of the foodplant.

Pupation occurs in the shelter. The pupa is brown, secured head upward by cremaster and girdle. It is covered in a white waxy powder.

The upper side of the adult butterfly is dark brown with a number of pale yellow spots on each wing. Each wing also has a chequered border.

male, underside
(Photo: courtesy of Museums Victoria)

Underneath, the wings are fawn with pale yellow patches under each wing. The males have a sex brand consisting of a grey line across part of each forewing. The wing span is just over 2 cms.

egg, magnified
(Photo: courtesy of Ken Walker, Mount Hotham, Victoria)

The eggs are shaped like tall domes, with 17 or so vague ribs. The eggs are off-white, developing coloured markings as hatching approaches, The eggs have a diameter of about 1 mm, and a height of about 1 mm. They are laid singly on a leaf or stem of a foodplant.

The species is found in the Dividing Range in

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp 118-119.

Arthur Sidney Olliff,
On Rhopalocera from Mt. Kosciusko, New South Wales,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Series 2, Volume 4, Part 3 (1890), p. 624, No. 19.

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(updated 30 April 2008, 5 January 2024)