Acraea terpsicore
6 Tawny Coster at McKellar, ACT
Identify this sighting
| Acraea terpsicore | SuziBond | 22 Nov 2024 | |
| Heteronympha merope | CarbonAI | 22 Nov 2024 | |
| Acraea terpsicore | Amata | 22 Nov 2024 |
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Significant sighting
SuziBond noted:
22 Nov 2024
This is a highly significant record; the closest record is located near Taree NSW. This species appears to be expanding its range in Australia since arriving in northern Australia in 2012.
User's notes
I first observed this butterfly flying to a rose from a distance, and I came closer and did not know its species, specualting relation to the Glasswing. It flew onto the grass, and I ran and took a photo, before it flew with another individual and later flew over the fence with one more individual.
7 comments
28 Nov 2024
Great sighting, memo to naturemapr, Is this an exotic species if it got here by itself, which it seems to have, starting in Darwin in 2012, and it has a wide distrubution in our near north.
28 Nov 2024
Doesn't exotic just mean it's not a native - eg same as the Monarch (Danaus plexippus) on Naturemapr.
28 Nov 2024
No, quite different, this appears to be a naturally self introduced species which as been spreading towards us through SE Asia for some time. Its main known foodplant (Hybanthus enneaspermus) is native here, and is also widespread in Asia. Yes, it is not endemic to Australia. Its in the same boat as many other species, esp. in northern Australia, like many swallowtails, and nymphs that have widespread distributions in SE Asia as well as being found here. The only difference is that here we have seen the process of arrival happen. That being the case it is (now) a 'native'. Its certainly not an introduced species reliant upon introduced plants to survive. An equivalent in the bird world it would be the Spotted Whistling duck , which has recently moved into FNQ from New Guinea. This is part of the natural flow of life and should be treated as such.
29 Nov 2024
Conservation level setting for the species best passed on to Drs Mulvaney and Bond @MichaelMulvaney @SuziBond methinks.
1 Dec 2024
I thought vagrants was usually applied to non-breeding species that arrived under their own volition. There is a constant 'rain' of insects migrating downwind into northern Australia during the NW monsoon and in the same way Australia exports many vagrants to New Zealand each spring on prefrontal airflows, most of which do not establish because of lack of host plants (the vagrants). A different example would be the Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, that migrated from the New World to Africa in 2013, spread through Asia in the next decade and arrived in Australia in January 2020. Although it's a pest of introduced crop plants, the larvae also feed on a wide range of other native plants. So I would consider it a recently established cosmopolitan species. The Monarch Butterfly is an anomaly since it has followed the spread of its introduced larval food plant (milkweed, Asclepias) across the Pacific by natural migration and has been in Australia for 150 years.
Location information
- Places McKellar, ACT
Sighting information
- 3 Abundance
- Amata Recorded by
- Rose and Grass Associated plant
- Native Bee, no contact Associated animal
- 25mm to 50mm Animal size
- Alive / healthy Animal health
- Yes Insect on a flower
Collections
- Significant Amata Canberra & Southern Tablelands NatureMapr Acraea terpsicore Nymphs (Nymphalidae) Butterflies (Lepidoptera, Rhopalocera) Insects
Species information
- Acraea terpsicore Scientific name
- Tawny Coster Common name
- Not Sensitive
- Cosmopolitan
- Non-invasive or negligible
- Up to 376m Recorded at altitude
- External link More information
Record quality
Quality score
4 / 7
- Images or audio
- Verified by an expert moderator
- Description
- Additional attributes
- More than one media file
- Nearby sighting(s) of same species
- GPS evidence of location