![]() | Lyell's Swift (previously known as Parnara lyelli) HESPERIINAE, HESPERIIDAE, HESPERIOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
first instar
(Photo: courtesy of Wes Jenkinson)
This Caterpillar is yellowish green with green dots and a darker green dorsal stripe. The last abdominal segment is larger, and is sparsely hairy.
The Caterpillar feeds on the leaves of various species of POACEAE, for example:
The Caterpillar rolls a foodplant leaf to make a shelter in which it hides by day, only emerging at night to feed.
It pupates inside its shelter. The pupa is green with a point on its head. Its length is about 3 cms.
The adult butterfly is dark brown with a series of white spots on each fore wing.
The males have a grey line across part of the upper surface of each forewing. The wing span is about 3 cms.
The eggs are round, and laid singly on a food plant leaf.
The species is found across the south-west pacific, including
and in Australia in
Further reading :
Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp. 239-240.
Wesley Jenkinson,
Life History notes on the Lyell's Swift,
Pelopidas lyelli lyelli (Rothschild, 1915) Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 65 (June 2012), pp. 16-18.
Wesley Jenkinson,
Omissions,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 66 (September 2012), pp. 37-38.
John Moss,
You Asked,
Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
Metamorphosis Australia,
Issue 90 (September 2018), pp. 38-39.
Buck Richardson,
Tropical Queensland Wildlife from Dusk to Dawn Science and Art,
LeapFrogOz, Kuranda, 2015, p. 230.
Lionel Walter Rothschild,
A new form of Attacus,
Novitates Zoologicae,
Volume 22, Part 3 (1915), p. 400, No. 171.
![]() caterpillar | ![]() butterflies | ![]() Lepidoptera | ![]() moths | ![]() caterpillar |
(updated 29 June 2012, 9 August 2024)