as well as exotic orchids from the genera :

pupa
(Photo: courtesy of David Rentz, Kuranda, Queensland)

The pupa is off-white, stout and flattish, held by the tail and central girdle to a stem of the foodplant. It and the caterpillar look remarkably like Orchid flower buds.

(Photo: courtesy of Paul Kay)

The adult butterflies have white wings with broad black margins. The margins are broader for the males. The margins of the hindwings of both sexes each have a marginal row of black-centred blue spots. Each hindwing has two tails at the tornus.

male, drawing by Rudolf Felder, listed as Myrina danis,
Reise der Osterreichischen Fregatte Novara,
Band 2, Abtheilung 2, Part 2 (1865), Plate XXX, fig. 12,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Underneath, the wings are similar, except all four wings have a marginal row of black-centred blue spots. The butterflies have a wingspan of about 3 cms.

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Paul Kay)

The eggs are white, spherical, and knobbly. They are typically laid singly on flower petals.

hatched eggshell
(Photo: courtesy of Mark Hopkinson)

Various subspecies of this butterfly occur on

and the subspecies turneri (Waterhouse, 1903) occurs in Australia in

drawing by Rudolf Felder, listed as Myrina danis,
Reise der Osterreichischen Fregatte Novara,
Band 2, Abtheilung 2, Part 2 (1865), Plate XXX, fig. 13,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 736-737.

Baron Cajetan Felder & Rudolf Felder,
Zoologischer Theil: Lepidoptera,
Reise der Osterreichischen Fregatte Novara,
Band 2, Abtheilung 2, Part 2 (1865), pp. 240-241, and also Plate 30, figs. 12, 13.

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(updated 1 September 2012, 7 November 2022)