Hypocysta angustata Waterhouse & Lyell, 1914
Black and White Ringlet
SATYRINAE,   NYMPHALIDAE,   PAPILIONOIDEA
 
Don Herbison-Evans
(donherbisonevans@yahoo.com)
and
Stella Crossley

Hypocysta angustata
(Photo: courtesy of CSIRO/BIO Photography Group, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph)

The Caterpillar of this species is dark green with a forked tail, and a brown head with two orange horns. It grows to a length of about 1.5 cms. It has been found feeding on

  • Wire Grass ( Tetrarrhena species, POACEAE ).

    Pupation occurs on the foodplant. The pupa hangs head down, suspended by a cremaster. The pupa is brown with dark markings, and has ridges along the back and on the head. Its length is about 1 cm.

    The adult butterflies have black forewings each with a fuzzy white patch. The hindwings are white with a black border, and a pair of eyespots by the tornus. Underneath, they are similar, except the hindwings each have three eyespots. The wingspan is about 3 cms.

    This species inhabits the rain forests of

  • New Guinea,
  • Philippines,

    and northern Australia in

  • Queensland on the Cape York Peninsula.


    Further reading :

    Michael F. Braby,
    Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 480-481.

    Gustavus Athol Waterhouse & George Lyell,
    The Butterflies of Australia,
    Angus & Robertson, 1914, Sydney, p. 34, No. 29a, and also Plate 12, Figs. 148, 149.

    G.A. Wood,
    The life history of Hypocysta angustata angustata Waterhouse and Lyell and Hypocysta irius (Fabricius)(Lepidoptera:Nymphalidae:Satyrinae),
    Australian Entomological Magazine,
    Volume 14 (1988), p. 6.


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    (updated 20 March 2004, 8 December 2013, 19 June 2020)