| Brown Soldier or Chocolate Argus (one synonym is Apatura tragia Hübner, [1819]) NYMPHALINAE, NYMPHALIDAE, PAPILIONOIDEA | (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley |
(Specimen: courtesy of the
Macleay Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney)
These Caterpillars are black except for the head and the last abdominal segment, which are orange. The bodies are cylindrical with a series of branched hairs along the body. The caterpillars feed on various plants from the family ACANTHACEAE, including :
The pupa is knobbly and is mottled brown in colour. It hangs head down usually on a blade of grass near the foodplant.
The wings of the adult butterflies are brown with a pattern of darker zig-zag lines and circles. There are indistinct white spots by the wing tips of the fore wings.
Underneath, They are are brown with fainter markings, except for a row of white spots on each hindwing. The butterflies have a wing span up to 6 cms.
The species is found as various subspecies across south-east Asia, including:
and as the subspecies zelima (Fabricius, 1775) in Australia in:
Further reading :
Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 576-577.
Frank Jordan & Helen Schwencke,
Create More Butterflies : a guide to 48 butterflies and their host-plants
Earthling Enterprises, Brisbane, 2005, pp. 12, 59.
Carl Linnaeus,
Museum Siae Riae Mitis Ludovicae Ulricae Reginae,
1764, p. 279, No. 97.
 caterpillar |  butterflies |  Lepidoptera |  moths |  caterpillar |
(updated 3 January 2010, 9 December 2013, 23 June 2020)