Delias aganippe (Spotted Jezebel)

Other Common Names

Red-spotted Jezebel, Wood White

Notes

I was rather surprised when I took my first photos of this species, as I’d expected it was one of those Delias species that spends most of its time in the tree tops.
Maybe it is, but in early October 2004 I found a female laying eggs on a small tree at the side of a path in the Ingleburn reserve. I kept an eye on the eggs, but they didn’t hatch.

I had a stroke of good luck in October 2005, when I found about a dozen of these butterflies hanging around a shrub just below a dune hilltop on the Kurnell Peninsula. I think they were just trying to keep out of the wind, as it was a very windy day.

I regularly see these butterflies hilltopping in the Blue Mountains, usually just one or two of them disputing ownership of the hilltop with each other, and often with Graphium macleayanum.  Most of the time aganippe floats around the hilltop, but towards the late afternoon (or if there’s a cloudy period) they become more likely to settle. They sometimes allow me to get close enough for photos, for which I am grateful as they’re lovely beasties.

Sightings

Ingleburn – October 2004
Ingleburn – October 2004
Blue Mountains – regularly
Ngarkat Conservation Park, South Australia – November 2017

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