Acrodipsas illidgei (Waterhouse & Lyell, 1914)
Mangrove Ant-blue
(previously known as Pseudodipsas illidgei)
LUCIINI,   THECLINAE,   LYCAENIDAE,   PAPILIONOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley


female
(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)

These Caterpillars are white, and feed on ant larvae while living in the nests of the small black ants :

  • Black Valentine Ant ( Crematogaster laeviceps, MYRMICINAE ).

    The pupa is brown, with a length of about 1 cm. It is formed inside the ant nest, near an exit hole.


    male, incidentally with the underside showing through
    (Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)

    The male adults of this species are brown, but the females having areas of iridescent blue on the upper surface of each wing. The undersides of both sexes are fawn with arcs of darker spots parallel to the margins. The wingspan is about 2 cms.

    The eggs are white and shaped like a mandarin orange. They have a diameter of about 0.7 mm. They are laid in small clusters of up to two dozen on the trunk of a tree colonised by their host ant species. Upon hatching, the young Caterpillars are carried by the ants into their nest.

    The species has been listed as endangered, and is found in

  • southern Queensland, and
  • New South Wales.


    Further reading :

    Illidge's Blue,
    Australian Geographic,
    Issue 24, Oct-Dec 1991, pp. 48-51.

    Michael F. Braby,
    Butterflies of Australia,
    CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 636-637.

    Peter Samson,
    Some of Australia’s myrmecophagous Lycaenid butterflies,
    Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
    Metamorphosis Australia,
    Issue 101 (June 2021), pp. 24-29.

    Gustavus Athol Waterhouse & George Lyell,
    The Butterflies of Australia,
    Angus & Robertson, 1914, Sydney, p. 83, No. 102b.

    Amelia Westerman and Trevor A Lambkin,
    A record of Acrodipsas illidgei (Waterhouse and Lyell) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from Karawatha Forest Park, Brisbane,
    Butterflies and Other Invertebrates Club,
    Metamorphosis Australia,
    Issue 106 (December 2023), pp. 41-43.


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    (updated 29 August 2005, 5 August 2024)