The caterpillars are always attended by various species of black ants from the subfamily DOLICHODERINAE, including :

(Photo: courtesy of Mark Hopkinson, found at Isabella Falls, Queensland)

The pupa is brown with a length of about 1.3 cms. It is attached to a foodplant stem or leaf.

female
(Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

The adult is metallic green in colour with black wing margins. Each hind wing has a black tail, and is decorated with two orange spots and some thin white lines. The undersurfaces of the wings are creamy fawn, with orange subterminal bands edged in brown. There are black spots near the hindwing tornus. The wingspan is about 3 cms.

male
(Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

The eggs of this species are round and flattened, with a diameter of about 0.7 mm. They are white or pale green, and ridged with little spikes. The eggs are laid in rows on the stems of a foodplant.

(Photo: courtesy of Mark Hopkinson, found at Isabella Falls, Queensland)

The species is found in

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 719-720.

Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 227.

Otto Staudinger,
Exotische Tagfalter in Systematische Reihenfolge,
in O. Staudinger & E. Schatz:
Exotische Schmetterlinge,
Theil 1, Part 19 (1888), p. 275.

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(updated 1 October 2010, 15 November 2013, 23 July 2020)