(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)

The pupa is green or brown with a gold ring around its widest part, and hangs from a stem of a reed supporting the foodplant.

(Photo: courtesy of Trevor Jink, North Burnett)

The upper sides of the wings of the adult butterflies are black and white.

(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)

The undersides are similar, except that the hindwings also have orange markings. The butterflies have a wingspan of about 6 cms.

underside
(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)

The butterflies are very fussy where they obtain nectar. They are especially fond of

egg, magnified
(Photo: courtesy of Ken Walker, Mataranka, Northern Territory)

The eggs are pale yellow and bullet shaped, with a peak diameter of about 0.8 mm., and a height of about 1.2 mm. The surface of each egg is covered with a dozen or so embossed ribs, each a column of about two dozen embossed circles. The eggs are laid singly on a foodpant.

This is a coastal species, found as a number of subspecies over south-east Asia, including

and in Australia in

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 596-597.

Johan Christian Fabricius,
Historiae Natvralis Favtoribvs,
Systema Entomologiae,
1775, p. 511, No. 291.

Frank Jordan & Helen Schwencke,
Create More Butterflies : a guide to 48 butterflies and their host-plants
Earthling Enterprises, Brisbane, 2005, pp. 43, 59.

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(updated 30 March 2009, 30 November 2013, 4 March 2015, 15 June 2020, 22 September 2021)