Notes

Other Common Names Iacchoides Skipper The first one of these I found was at Ingleburn, and to be honest, I'm not 100% certain of the identification. From the upperside, I was fairly sure it was T.iacchoides. But the photos of the undersides looked more like T. praxedes. The problem, of course, is that the photos were all of the same individual. I looked at the photos a few times before deciding. The underside really does resemble a female T. praxedes, and I have photographed males of that species in the same general area. But on the upperside the yellow spots looked much too large to be that species. Also, the yellow spots are joined as in T. iacchoides, not separated as in T. praxedes. When I was reading about these species in Braby's Butterflies of Australia book, I saw that the white spots on the underside of T. iacchoides are not so clearly defined in specimens from the areas near Sydney as they are in specimens from the elevated areas of northern NSW. The spots on the underside of my specimen are not very white, but they do appear to be whiter than the pictures I've seen of female T. praxedes. The second one I found was at Lawson in the Blue Mountains in December 2005. At the time I presumably just thought it was T. praxedes, as I just filed the photos away and didn't use them for the website (I already had better pics of T. praxedes). But over 2 years later I was browsing through my old unused pics and I spotted this - it was obviously T. iacchoides, so I thought I'd better use the photos after all! I saw one specimen at Cathedral Rock NP in November 2008, and it was probably the most spectacular skipper I've ever seen. I suspect it was a female, and it must have been newly hatched. It was feeding from some white flowers, and unfortunately moved around constantly and so I only got one or two pics and they were not very good. That butterfly was very large and very colourful - despite the light being very dull indeed, the colours almost seemed to glow. In contrast, I saw at least 2 and maybe as many as four examples of this species on a hilltop near Lawson in the Blue Mountains in December 2008. These guys were a lot smaller than the one at Cathedral Rock; they were about the same size as T. eliena. They were also much less colourful; this may partly be because they were a bit worn, but I suspect that the specimens from this Sydney area do tend to be a bit more drab. Certainly Braby's book comments on the silver spots being less obvious. Sightings Ingleburn Reserve - October 2004. Lawson - December 2005, December 2008 Cathedral Rock National Park - November 2008 Mittagong - November 2009