Prosotas nora

Prosotas nora (C. Felder, 1860)
Nora's or Long-tailed Line-blue
(previously known as Lycaena nora)
POLYOMMATINI, POLYOMMATINAE, LYCAENIDAE, PAPILIONOIDEA

Don Herbison-Evans,
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Prosotas nora
early instar
(Photo: courtesy of Bob Miller)

These Caterpillars initially are green with a vague pattern.

middle instar
(Photo: courtesy of Bob Miller)

Later instars develop a purple and white pattern on the back.

later instar
(Photo: courtesy of Bob Miller)

Even later instars become mauve.

even later instar
(Photo: courtesy of Bob Miller)

The caterpillars feed on the flower buds of various plants in:

MIMOSACEAE, and

SAPINDACEAE.

Prosotas nora
(Photos: courtesy of Bob Miller)

The pupa is naked and dumpy, with a brown pattern.

male
(Picture: courtesy of CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences)

The adult butterflies have a small tail at the tornus of each hindwing. The adult male is brown with a purple sheen on top. The females are brown with an arc of black spots along the margin of each hindwing ending in a big spot by the tail.

female, drawing by De Nicéville, listed as Nacaduba nora,
On new and little known Rhopalocera from the Indian Region,
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,
Volume LII, Part II (1884) p. 73, Plate 1, Fig. 14,
image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, digitized by California Academy of Sciences.

The under-surfaces of the wings of both sexes are fawn, with multiple arcs of white dashes, and with a black spot beside the tail of each hindwing. The wingspan is about 2 cms.

underside
(Photo: courtesy of Martin Purvis)

The eggs are laid singly on leaves of a foodplant. The eggs are off-white, and doughnut-shaped with a fine surface pattern of spiral ridges.

egg, magnified
(Photo: courtesy of Bob Miller)

The species occurs as various subspecies across south-east Asia, including

and as the subspecies auletes (Waterhouse & Lyell, 1914) on the tropical north-east coast of Australia in

Queensland.

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 796-797.

Baron Cajetan von Felder,
Lepidopterorum Amboienensium species novae diagnosibus,
Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe,
Volume 40, Series 11 (1860), p. 458, No. 37.

De Nicéville,
On new and little known Rhopalocera from the Indian Region,
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,
Volume 52, Part 2 (1884) p. 73,, and also Plate 1, Fig. 14.

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(updated 1 June 2008, 28 December 2023)