Neolucia agricola

Neolucia agricola (Westwood, [1851])
Fringed Heath-blue
(previously known as Lucia agricola)
POLYOMMATINI, POLYOMMATINAE, LYCAENIDAE, PAPILIONOIDEA

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

Neolucia agricola
(Photo: courtesy of R.P. Field, Museums Victoria)

This Caterpillar is green or brown with a thin dark dorsal stripe bordered by pink and white. It has a hairy tail and a hairy brown head. It is sometimes attended by the small black ants

Iridomyrmex species ( DOLICHODERINAE ).

It feeds inside the flower buds of various FABACEAE including

Golden Pea ( Aotus ericoides ),,

Acute Daviesia ( Daviesia angulata ),

Stinkwood ( Jacksonia sternbergiana ), and

Bristly Bush Pea ( Pultenaea acerosa ).

pupa
(Photo: courtesy of R.Field, Museums Victoria)

The pupa can be any colour from pink to dark brown, with darker spots and makings. Its length is about 0.7 cm. The pupa is sometimes formed attached to the foodplant, an sometimes in adjacent leaf litter on the ground.

(Photo: courtesy of Nick Monaghan, Noosa, Queensland)

The adults are brown on top with chequered margins. Underneath, they are pale brown. The underside of each forewing has a stripe and patches of darker brown outlined in black and white. The underside of each hindwing has a white flash and two black chevrons. The butterflies have a wing span of about 2 cms.

showing underside
(Photo: courtesy of Eileen Collins, Chiltern, Victoria)

The eggs are white partly squashed spheres, covered in a complex array of dimples. The eggs have a diameter of about 0.5 mm. They are laid singly on a leaf or stem of a foodplant.

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

The species occurs as three recognised races:

agricola in
Queensland, and New South Wales, and Victoria, and South Australia,

insulana Waterhouse & Lyell, 1914, in
Tasmania, and

occidens Waterhouse & Lyell, 1914, in
Western Australia.

drawing by John O. Westwood, listed as Lucia agricola,
Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera, Volume 2 (1851), Plate LXXVI, fig. 4,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University.