The animal is buff and hairy, with darker lines along the body. It has a pair of horns on the tail. It grows to a length of about 2 cms.

The pupa is suspended head down from a cremaster. It can be any colour from green to brown, and has brown markings.

(Photo: courtesy of Martin Purvis, Ingleburn, NSW)

The adult is dark brown with an eyespot on each wing. The eyespots on the forewings have two blue spots in them. The undersides are similar to the upper surfaces but a little paler. The wingspan is about 3 cms.

mating couple
sorry about the dark line shadow of the grass stem
(Photo: courtesy of Nick Monaghan, Tewantin, Queensland)

The eggs are green and approximately spherical.

The species occurs in New Guinea, and also in Australia in the Northern Territory ,  Queensland ,  New South Wales , and Victoria.

Further reading :

Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 2, pp. 478-479.

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