Borbo impar

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 :

  • Guinea Grass ( Panicum maximum ),
  • Nigeria Grass ( Pennisetum pedicellatum ), and
  • Rottboellia cochinensis.

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 :

  • lavinia, and
  • tetragraphus.