Don Herbison-Evans (
donherbisonevans@yahoo.com )
&
Stella Crossley
(updated 14 July 2004)
Borbo impar lavinia
(Photo: by C.E. Meyer,
courtesy of
The Australian Entomologist)
This Caterpillar is cream with a lot of little green spots all over. It has a green line along the back edged with cream. The head is fawn with red and white stripes. It feeds at night on various plants from the Grass family ( POACEAE ), including :
The Caterpillar hides by day in a shelter made from a rolled leaf of its foodplant, and grows to a length of about 4 cms.
In due course it pupates in an open cylindrical shelter on a dense pad of silk. The pupa is green with a horn on its head. The pupa has a length of about 3 cms.
The adult butterfly is dark brown, with a sparse submarginal row of spots shading from white along the margin of the fore wing to yellow along the margin of the hind wing. The wing span is 3 to 4 cms. The undersides are similar to the upper surfaces but paler.
Various subspecies are found from Indonesia to the Solomons. Two subspecies have recognised in the Northern Territory of Australia :
Further reading :
C.E. Meyer The Life History of Borbo impar lavinia (Waterhouse) (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae), The Australian Entomologist, vol. 24, part 2 (September 1997), pp. 78-80.
Michael F. Braby, Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp. 245-246.
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