Euploea darchia

Euploea darchia ( W.S.Macleay, 1826 )
(one synonym : Calliploea waterhousei)
Darwin Crow
DANAINAE, NYMPHALIDAE

Don Herbison-Evans ( donherbisonevans@yahoo.com )
&
Stella Crossley

(updated 14 July 2004)

(Photo: by C.E. Meyer, courtesy of The Australian Entomologist)

These Caterpillars have a series of alternating dark brown and pale cream bands across each segment, shading into orange-brown at the sides of the body. There is a cream stripe along each side of the body just above the legs. The Caterpillars have three pairs of dark brown fleshy filaments. The Caterpillars grow to a length of about 4 cms. They feed on the new shoots of :

Burny Vine ( Trophis scandens, MORACEAE ).

The Caterpillars grow to a length of about 4 cms. The pupa is naked and hung by a cremaster. It is initially green, but it changes to appear metallic after a couple of days, looking as though it is chrome-plated. It has a length of about 1 cm.

Euploea darchia niveata
(Specimen: courtesy of the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)

The adult butterflies emerge after just over a week, and are brownish black, with an arc of white spots around each wing margin.

Euploea darchia niveata
underside
(Specimen: courtesy of the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney)

The undersides are very similar to the upper surfaces. The adult butterflies have a wing span around 5 cms.

The eggs are yellow and have a height of about 1 mm. The are laid singly on the undersides of leaves on young shoots of a foodplant.

There are various subspecies found in New Guinea and Indonesia, and Australian has the subspecies :

darchia with small white spots around hindwing margin, from the Darwin area, and

niveata with a broad white margin to the hindwing, from Cape York.