Butterfly of the Month - March 2024

Purple Moonbeam (Philiris innotata) is one of those little butterflies whose presence is known without the adult butterfly necessarily being seen. If you walk along a creek line and see markings on the leaves of Sandpaper Figs like shown in the image, you know you have the Purple Moonbeam present.

The often elusive adult butterfly is very beautiful with a white under-side and the tiniest of black spots at the outer margin of the hindwing as well as one dark spot near the male’s inner hindwing margin. A very fine dark line marks the outer wing margins. The upper side exhibits a dark brown to almost black base colour with extensive blue to purple patches across the wings in the male, while the female shows smaller patches of a greyish blue or faint blue.

The butterfly belongs to the Lycaenidae, the largest of our Australian butterfly families consisting of blues, coppers and hairstreaks. The Purple Moonbeam starts its life cycle as a beautiful white egg, laid on the underside of its host plant leaf. The egg is round, only 0.6mm wide, shaped like a mandarin with a flattened top, and a surface dominated by pits and ridges, with the latter having protruding spines.

The different instar stages of the larva are green with a white to cream coloured line running the length of the body, and multiple small beige markings are visible on each segment of it. Fine short hairs are surrounding the body. Pattern and colour help larva and 11mm long pupa to camouflage as they are similar to the pattern and colour of the host plants’ leaf (underside).

While larvae are usually not attended by ants, they may occasionally exist in association with Crematogaster sp, as our image shows.

In Brisbane the larvae feed on Creek Sandpaper Fig (Ficus coronata) and Forest Sandpaper Fig (Ficus opposita). The host plants are found in riparian areas or our dry rainforest thicket settings.

Images:

CM – Cliff Meyer; GW – Geoff Walker; JG – Jutta Godwin; PS – Peter Samson