| Golden or Sydney Azure ARHOPALINI, THECLINAE, LYCAENIDAE, PAPILIONOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
male
(Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group,
Centre for Biodiversity Genomics,
University of Guelph)
|
| Golden or Sydney Azure ARHOPALINI, THECLINAE, LYCAENIDAE, PAPILIONOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
male
(Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group,
Centre for Biodiversity Genomics,
University of Guelph)
This Caterpillar is velvelty brown with a pale dorsal stripes, dark diagonal markings on each segment, and a pair of dark brown eversible horns on the tail. The caterpillar hides by day communally in cracks in the bark, and emerges to feed nocturnally. It feeds on various species of Mistletoe (LORANTHACEAE) such as :
The caterpillars are usually attended by the small dark brown ants :
The caterpillar pupates under loose bark. The pupa is remarkable for making noises: making clicking sounds. The pupa has a length of about 1.5 cms,
The adult butterflies are strongly dimorphic. On top, the male is a brilliant iridescent blue with black borders around each wing. The female is brown with a large yellow patch on each wing. Underneath, the male is brown with dark blotchy bars along the costa of each forewing, and there are arcs of diffuse dark marks on the hindwings.
The undersides of the females are similar to their upper surfaces, with the addition of some dark bars along the costa of each forewing.
The species occurs in
Further reading :
Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 702-703.
Gustavus Athol Waterhouse,
Descriptions of New Species of Australian Rhopalocera,
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,
Volume 25, Part 1 (1900), p. 52-54, and also
Plate 1, figs 1-4.
 caterpillar |  butterflies |  Lepidoptera |  moths |  caterpillar |
(updated 13 March 2004, 21 November 2013, 1 August 2020)