Green Awl (previously known as Goniloba discolor) COELIADINAE, HESPERIIDAE, HESPERIOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Peter R. Samson & Stella Crossley |
(Photo copyright: Peter Samson)
These Caterpillars have a series of black bands running along the back and yellow bands along each side, all broken into rectangles by sets of intersegmental transverse white bands. The head is orange and the thorax yellow. The caterpillars feed on :
The caterpillars grow to a length of about 4 cms. They live in a shelter made by cutting and folding a leaf and joining it by silk. They pupate in the same shelter. The pupa is totally covered in a waxy white powder.
The adult butterflies are dark brown on top, tending to green at the body. The underside is dark metallic green, with some vague pale green iridescent bands across each forewing, and with a broad pale yellow band across each hindwing. The butterflies have a wingspan of about 4 cms. They rest typically hanging upside-down under a leaf.
This species occurs as several subspecies in
and the subspecies mastusia Fruhstorfer, 1911, occurs in Australia along the coast of
Further reading :
Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp 79-80.
Baron Cajetan Felder & Rudolf Felder,
Lepidopterologische Fragmente,
Wiener Entomologische Monatschrift,
Band 3, Part 12 (1859), p. 405, No. L.
Wesley Jenkinson,
Life history notes on the Green Awl,
Hasora discolor (C. Felder & R. Felder, 1859)
Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 61 (June 2011), pp. 13-15.
caterpillar | butterflies | Lepidoptera | moths | caterpillar |
(updated 13 February 2010, 22 December 2023)