Don Herbison-Evans (
donherbisonevans@yahoo.com )
&
Stella Crossley
male and female upper surfaces
(Photo: courtesy of
Yusuke Takanami & Yasuo Seki)
These Caterpillars are brown with a dark brown head and thorax. The Caterpillars are covered with dense fine hairs, and grow to a length of about 1 cm. They feed on the flowerbuds, flowers and fruit of :
The pupa is brown with dark spots, and has a length of about 0.8 cm.
The male adults are pale blue on top. The females are similar but the fore wings have black wingtips and margins, and each hind wing of the female has a subterminal arc of black spots. Both sexes have a small tail on each hind wing. Underneath, both sexes are grey with several arcs of white dashes, and the females often have a white patch under each fore wing. Each hind wing has two black spots near the leading edge and one or two by the tail. The butterflies have a wing span of about 3 cms.
The eggs are pale green and toroidal with a diameter of about 0.7 mm. They are laid singly on buds, flowers and fruit of a foodplant.
The species occurs as several races throughout south-east Asia, from Malaysia to the Solomons, including the Philippines, and claudia occurs on Cape York in Queensland.
Further reading :
Michael F. Braby, Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 825-826.
G.A. Wood, The life history of Jamides cytus claudia (Waterhouse and Lyell) (Lepidoptera:Lycaenidae:Lycaeninae) Queensland Naturalist, Volume 28 (1987), pp. 1-4.
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(updated 5 July 2003)