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Glasswing Butterfly - Acraea andromacha
FAMILY NYMPHALIDAE
This page contains information and pictures about Glasswing Butterflies in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Wingspan 50mm
- The Glasswing butterfly also commonly called Little Greasy and Small Greasy. Its forewings are almost transparent with a few black spots. Its hind wings are creamy yellow with black spot patterns. We seldom see them in our area (Eight Mile Plains). The butterfly was wandering across the grass field in early spring when I took those pictures.
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- Male and female adults of Glasswing butterflies look similar. Their caterpillars feed on native passionfruit plants Passiflora aurantia and Corky passionvine Passiflora suberosa.
- Glasswing Butterflies gather together in Alexandra Hill hill top all the year round. Even in winter we found quite a number of Glasswings in Alexandra Hill.
- We noticed that the Glasswing butterflies have their territorial behaviour. The males like to rest on the branch of dead tree about 2 meters above the ground. When another males come near, he will chased them away.
The Caterpillar Food Plants
- Australia Native Passionfruit - Glasswing Butterfly caterpillar food plant
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- Passiflora herbertiana, family Passifloraceae
- The Glasswing Butterfly caterpillar food plant is the Australia Native Passionfruit.
We found a Glasswing Caterpillar
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- In mid-summer we found a Glasswing caterpillar in Macgregor bushland.
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- Caterpillar, length 30mm
- We found this caterpillar when it was feeding on the passion vine Passiflora. When we found it we did not know it was the Glasswing caterpillar. The caterpillar was pale brown in colour, with an orange head and branched black spines all over its body. Few days later the caterpillar start to turn into pupa. The second pictures above shows the caterpillar selected a spot on the vine, hanging upside down from its crochets and turning into a pupa.
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- Pupa, length 20mm
- The caterpillar took about a whole day to turn into a pupa. In the above pictures notice the molted skin is still attached on the vine. The pupa was creamy white with black lines. There were a pair of orange-yellow dots in black circles on each abdomen segment. From the pupa shape, we guessed it was a butterfly in NYMPHALIDAE family. We were waiting to see what butterfly it would be.
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- About ten days later, a butterfly came out from the pupa. To our surprise, it was a Glasswing Butterfly, one of the butterfly that we familiar with. We just never saw their caterpillar before.
