Hasora chromus (Cramer, [1780])
Chrome Awl
 (previously known as Papilio chromus)
COELIADINAE,   HESPERIIDAE,   HESPERIOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans,
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Hasora chromus
(Photo: courtesy of Wes Jenkinson)

These Caterpillars are brown with short sparse hairs, although the colour can vary to pinkish or greenish. They have a dark dorsal line, and yellow dorsolateral and lateral lines. The head is brown. The young caterpillars feed on young soft leaves, but later instars consume the harder older leaves of their foodplant :

  • Pongam ( Pongamia pinnata, FABACEAE ).

    The caterpillars live in a shelter made from a folded leaf joined with silk. They feed both by day and at night.

    Hasora chromus
    (Photo: courtesy of Wes Jenkinson)

    They pupate in their shelter.

    Hasora chromus
    male
    (Photo: courtesy of Wes Jenkinson)

    The adult butterflies of this species are basically brown. The males have a black line across part of each forewing, and the females have two transparent spots on each forewing.

    Hasora chromus
    male, underside
    (Photo: courtesy of Graeme Cocks, Townsville, Queensland)

    Both sexes have a white band across the underside of each hindwing ending in a fuzzy dark spot at the tornus. Both sexes have a wingspan of about 4 cms.

    Hasora chromus
    female
    (Photo: courtesy of Wes Jenkinson)

    The species has been found in south-east Asia across to the south Pacific, including:

  • India
  • Japan,
  • New Guinea,
  • Taiwan,

    and in Australia in

  • Western Australia,
  • Northern Territory,
  • Queensland, and
  • New South Wales.

    Hasora chromus
    female, underside
    (Photo: courtesy of Wes Jenkinson)

    Further reading :

    Michael F. Braby,
    Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp 81-82.

    Pieter Cramer,
    Uitlandsche kapellen voorkomende in de drie waereld-deelen,
    Amsterdam Baalde, Volume 3 (1780), p. 163, and also Plate 284, fig. E..

    Wesley Jenkinson,
    Life history notes on the Chrome Awl Taractrocera dolon (Plotz, 1884) Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae,
    Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
    Metamorphosis Australia,
    Issue 93 (June 2019), pp. 22-26.

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    (updated 11 February 2010, 21 March 2025)