Theclinesthes onycha (Cycad Blue)

Theclinesthes onycha onycha
Theclinesthes onycha capricornia

Other Common Names

Onycha Blue

Notes

This species is very similar to T. miskini. If I’d found my first specimen sitting in the middle of a field I’d probably have taken ages to decide which species it was. But in this case, I was immediately confident it was a Cycad Blue, because I found it sitting on a cycad. It was in the Mount Annan Botanic Garden; in one section of their Terrace Garden there is a bed of cycads, and I found this butterfly resting on Macrozamia lucida, according to the sign at the bottom of the plant.
After I’d taken a few photos, it flew off rapidly, but it soon settled on the ground nearby, and I was able to get some more shots.

I was pleased to find this butterfly, because every time I go to Mount Annan I always check the cycads for this species. I never really expected to see it there, as it’s not a very big bed of cycads, so it was a pleasant surprise. I’ve never seen onycha there since then.

In the Brisbane Botanic gardens these butterflies were really hammering the foreign cycads in the more ornamental part of the gardens, though strangely enough they did not seem to be going anywhere near the native cycads in the Australian Bush areas!

Sightings

Mount Annan Botanic Garden – December 2004
Cairns – September 2008
Brisbane Botanic Gardens, QLD – November 2008
Beerwah, QLD – November 2008
Mount Sugarloaf, NSW – November 2010, December 2010, February 2011

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