Heteronympha cordace

Heteronympha cordace (Geyer, 1832)
Bright Eyed Brown
(previously known as Tisiphone cordace)
SATYRINAE, NYMPHALIDAE, PAPILIONOIDEA

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

Heteronympha cordace
(Photo: courtesy of Laura Levens, Upper Beaconsfield, Victoria)

The Caterpillars of this species feed nocturnally on various grasses such as:

Tall Sedge ( Carex appressa, CYPERACEAE ).

By day, they hide in debris at the base of the foodplant. The early instars of this caterpillar are green, with a black head. Later instars are green or brown with darker lines along the body, and with a brown head and a forked tail. The caterpillars can grow to a leength of 3 cms.

The pupa is green with yellowish patches and black spots. Its length is about 1.5 cms. It is suspended head down by a cremaster from the foodplant or a nearby object.

(Specimen: courtesy of Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)

The adults are dark brown with orange markings, and have one eyespot on each forewing and two on each hindwing. Underneath, the wings are similar but paler.

underside
(Specimen: courtesy of Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)

The butterflies have a wing span of about 4 cms. They can be found around swampy environments, where the larval foodplant grows.

egg, magnified
(Photo: courtesy of Ken Walker, Barrington Tops, New South Wales)

The eggs are yellowish green, with a diameter of about 0.8 mm. Each egg is covered in about 40 columns of about 40 of shallow microscopic pits. The eggs are laid in groups of one to three on the undersides of lower leaves of a foodplant.

The species is found as several races :

cordace in the mountains of New South Wales and Victoria,

wilsoni Burns, [1948], in southern Victoria and South Australia, and

in Tasmania:

legana Couchman, 1954, in the east,

kurena Couchman, 1954, in the centre, and

comptena Couchman, 1954, in the west.