Initially the ants feed the young caterpillars. Later, the caterpillars attack and eat the ant larvae. The caterpillars are off-white and narrow. They have a black head and a brown prothorax.

male
(Picture: courtesy of CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences)

The adults of this species are coppery brown. The females also have areas of iridescent blue on the upper surface of each wing. There are one large and two small black spots by the tornus of each hindwing.

female
(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)

The undersides are fawn with arcs of fawn spots parallel to the margins. The black spots on the tornus of each hindwing are repeated underneath, but there have orange borders. The wing-span is about 2 cms.

The eggs of this species are white and laid in groups of two or three on tree trunks used by the host ants. The ants collect the eggs and take them to their nest.

underside
(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)

The species has been found in

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 631-632.

Rod Eastwood & Jane Hughes,
Phylogeography of the rare myrmecophagous butterfly Acrodipsas cuprea (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from pinned museum specimens,
Australian Journal of Zoology,
Volume 51, Part 4 (2003), pp. 331-340.

Donald Peter Andrew Sands,
A New Species of Acrodipsas Sands (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from Southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory,
Australian Journal of Entomology,
Volume 36, Issue 4 (December 1997), pp. 339–344.

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(updated 15 February 2005, 23 December 2023)