Anisynta tillyardi

Anisynta tillyardi Waterhouse & Lyell, 1912
Wedge Grass-skipper
(one synonym : Trapezites paraphaes Meyrick & Lower, 1902)
TRAPEZITINAE, HESPERIIDAE, HESPERIOIDEA

Don Herbison-Evans,
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Anisynta tillyardi
(Photo: courtesy of Nick Monaghan)

The Caterpillars of this species are greenish brown, with indistinct dark lines along the body. The caterpillars live, often communally, in a shelter constructed of dead leaves and debris at the base of a foodplant. They feed nocturnally on :

Common Tussock Grass ( Poa labillardieri, POACEAE ).

(Photo: courtesy of Nick Monaghan)

The adults are brown fading to orange at the wing bases, with cream spots on the forewings. The undersides of the forewings are dark brown with an orangish strip along each costa. but the hindwings have arcs of white spots, and both fore and hindwings have chequered edges underneath. The butterflies have a wing span of about 3 cms.

(Specimen: courtesy of the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)

The eggs are laid in a row of half a dozen on th underside of a leaf of a foodplant.

This species occurs in the Dividing Range, above 1,000 meters, in :

Queensland and

New South Wales.

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp 116-117.

Gustavus Athol Waterhouse & George Lyell,
Descriptions of and notes on some Australian Hesperidae,
Victorian Naturalist,
Volume 28, Part 12 (1912) pp. 223-224.

caterpillar

Australian
Australian Butterflies

butterflies

Australian
home

Lepidoptera

Australian
Australian Moths

moths

caterpillar

(updated 19 March 2011, 29 September 2013, 10 September 2021)