Prosotas felderi (Short-tailed Line-blue)

Other Common Names

Southern Line-blue, Felder’s Line-blue

Notes

I first saw this butterfly sitting on top of a Hibiscus insularis bush in the Royal Botanic Gardens, back in May 2004. It was out of range of my camera, but I found that if I shook the bush a bit, the butterfly would do a couple of circuits and land on another spot, always near the top and always in the sun. So I just kept on shaking until it settled in a spot close enough to be photographed. Although it’s mostly brown, I suspect it’s actually a male, but a rather worn specimen. The underside ground colour was definitely more grey-brown rather than the yellow-brown of the female.

Early in June 2004, I saw several individuals near the exit from the main carpark at Mount Annan Botanic Gardens. They were feeding from the flowers of a shrub called Chamelaucium uncinatum. Although the bush had flowers at various heights, they didn’t seem to want to feed below about 2 metres from the ground, though I did see them land on the ground and on low-level plants to bask in the sun.

In July that year I saw 4 or 5 individuals around a flowering shrub in the Royal Botanical Gardens, right next to the bush where I saw my first specimen in May.

Over the years I’ve come across this species in many places around Sydney, and also on the Central Coast to the north, and at Coalcliff to the south.  Mostly there’s a small number of them, but sometimes they can be truly abundant. Once in the Royal Botanic Gardens a line of trees near the Cacti & Succulent Garden was absolutely swarming with these butterflies – they were in plague proportions though I’ve not seen a lot of them there since that day.

Sightings

Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney – May, July 2004
Mount Annan Botanic Garden – June 2004; April, May 2005, May 2011, April 2013, May 2019
Manly – March 2005
Ingleburn – April 2005
Glenbrook – March 2006
Ourimbah – January 2019
Coalcliff – January 2019

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