The Caterpillar constructs a shelter using silk, rolling or joining leaves of the foodplant. By day it lives in its shelter, enmerging at night to feed.

It pupates in its shelter.

(Photo: courtesy of Martin Purvis, Ingleburn, New South Wales)

The adult butterfly is dark brown with a yellow patch and and some white spots on each fore wing, and a yellow patch on each hind wing. The males have a patch of grey on each forewing.

male
(Photo: courtesy of Museums Victoria)

Underneath, the wings are fawn coloured, with white and yellow patches under the forewings, and an arc of white dots edged in black under each hindwing. The wingspan of the males is about 3 cms. That of the females is about 3.5 cms.

female
(Photo: courtesy of Museums Victoria)

The eggs are shaped like partly squashed spheres, with minute ribs, and are white, turning yellow as hatching approaches, with a diameter of about 1.5 mm. They are laid singly on a leaf or stem of a foodplant.

egg, magnified
(Photo: courtesy of Ken Walker, Blue Mountains, New South Wales)

The species is found in a number of pockets around the southern half of Australia, with a number of races adapted to various climates from the seashore to the mountains, including :

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp. 152-154.

Kelvin Dunn,
New Distribution Records for Ceoliadine and Trapezitine Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae) in Australia,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 79 (December 2015), pp. 13-31.

William Chapman Hewitson,
Hesperidae,
Descriptions of One Hundred new species of Hesperidae,
London, Part 1 (1867), p. 39, No. 3.

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(updated 2 February 2010, 14 August 2024)