(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)
The pupa is orange with black knobs on, and has a length of about 2.5 cms.
Male
(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)
The upper surfaces of the wings of the adult male butterfly are yellow to orange, with a black forewing tips, and a narrow black band around the hindwing edges.
Female
(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)
The upper surfaces of the wings of the adult female butterfly are black, with an orange basal area, and some obscure orange spotts around the forewing tips.
Underside, Male
(Specimen: courtesy of the The Australian Museum)
The undersides of both sexes are dark brown. The male has a yellow mark on each forewing and a scarlet mark near the base of each hindwing. The female has arcs of yellow spots around the margin of the undersides of all four wings. Both sexes have wingspans of about 7 cms.
Papua New Guinea 1966
In Australia, the sub species inferna is found only on the Cape York Peninsula. Other subspecies are found in New Guinea and adjacent islands.
Further reading :
Michael F. Braby,
Butterflies of Australia,
CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne 2000, vol. 1, pp. 333-334.
G.A. Wood,
The life history of Delias aruna inferna Butler
(Lepidoptera: Pieridae: Pierinae),
Queensland Naturalist, Volume 35 (1997), pp. 1-3.
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