A New Toowoomba Butterfly -- Rod Hobson

On the afternoon of 16 March 2017, a good friend, Chris Burwell from the Queensland Museum, and I were heading back to base after an afternoon of dragonfly hunting around Magoo’s Swamp at Laura on Cape York. We were staying at the Ang-Gnarra Aboriginal Corporation Caravan Park and participating in a Commonwealth Government’s BushBlitz centered on the Laura area. As we approached the information centre where the research facilities were held, we saw a small orange butterfly flutter by, which Chris promptly netted and identified as the Tawny Coster Acraea terpsicore. A great deal of excitement ensued, as we were convinced that we had just recorded this insect for the first time in Queensland. The Tawny Coster had only arrived in Australia from SE Asia recently being first recorded around Darwin in April 2012 (Braby 2016, Braby et al 2013). We were very pleased with our catch. All sorts of articles and communications were planned only to have defeat snatched from the mouth of victory a day later when we were informed, that we’d been beaten to the punch by about three weeks. In February, the insect had been recorded at several sites in the Mt. Surprise area. Still, we were excited by our very own Tawny Coster.

Since that date to last week (12.11.20) this butterfly has slipped into and out of my life on several occasions mostly serendipitously but also from my association with an excellent lepidopterist and close friend Wesley Jenkinson. Wes is a well-regarded authority on Australian butterflies and moths, and we’ve been companions since meeting on a Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service fauna survey in Bendidee State Forest in March 2003. We’ve now spent a lot of time in the bush together. Wes has seen a huge number of Australia’s moths and butterflies. I’ve seen only a tiny fraction. But I’ve seen many Tawny Costers since Laura. Wes hasn’t seen one yet. We both discuss the Tawny Coster a lot. I usually manage to introduce it into our conversations at some point. I’ll dine out on this for as long as I can, but I fear my downfall cometh. You see, the Tawny Coster has spread at an amazing rate down Queensland and has recently arrived in our area. Heavy is the head that wears the Tawny Coster crown.

I’ve spent a good bit of time travelling up and down the east coast of Australia since Laura – and keep encountering Tawny Costers. In July 2017 I was in Townsville with another friend Robert Ashdown en route to a QPWS ranger’s conference on Magnetic Island. On the 17^th of that month we encountered a kaleidoscope of these butterflies around the World War 11 Gun Command Post at Pallarenda and the Jezzine Barracks at Kissing Point. Two days later we saw a single butterfly at Geoffrey Bay on Magnetic Island, which I was subsequently informed was the first record for that island. This is not surprising, though, considering that Magnetic Island is only 14 kilometres from Townsville where the species was abundant at the time. Around this same time, on the 21^st of that month another friend, Harry Hines found the species at two separate locations nearby at Bowling Green Bay National Park. A large migration of these butterflies was recorded heading south-east passing through Kelso-Country Estate, Townsville between the 30 March and the 05 April 2017 according to the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House’s website.  In that year other sightings were reported from inland Queensland, from Georgetown to Charters Towers and Longreach. In June 2019 I was involved in a fauna survey at Burdekin Falls Dam (Lake Dalrymple) south-west of Ayr, and on some surrounding cattle properties. On the Andison property ‘Cranbourne” (E 146.9549 x S -20.64668) on the 17^th we encountered several of these butterflies and three days later found an abundance of them around the water’s edge near the dam wall. Here we observed many to have fallen victim to the “tender” embraces of the sundew Drosera finlaysoniana that is a common plant along the dam shoreline. And that was about it for my encounters with this butterfly; however Wes, Chris Burwell and I have often discussed the possibility of its soon reaching SEQ given the animal’s rapid rate of expansion south.

In SE Asia the Tawny Coster was initially found in India and Sri Lanka but reached Thailand (1984), Malaysia (1992), Singapore (2006) and Java (2011). Its rate of expansion there has been calculated at 200 kilometres a year (Braby et al 2013). In Australia, the larvae have been observed feeding on the foliage of Coffee Bush Leucaena leucocephala, Stinking Passionflower Passiflora foetida, Spade Flower Hybanthus enneaspermus and various gourds Trichosanthes spp. so there’s plenty of snacking options here for the inveterate traveller. Working on the above figures from Townsville to Toowoomba should take the Tawny Coster about six years! It should arrive here by these estimates in 2022-23. But it won’t. It’s already arrived a year or two early.

I was dog-walking and birdwatching at Lions Park at Hodgson Vale last Thursday, 12^th November. It was hot and sultry. Butterflies were about in large numbers. A Caper White migration was in full swing at the time. A lot of the other local denizens were also on the wing including Blue Tiger, Lesser Wanderer, Small Grass Yellow, Orchard, Dainty and Chequered Swallowtails, Varied Eggfly, Scarlet Jezebel, Cabbage White, Meadow Argus, Australian Painted Lady and Common Crow. And into this jocund company what should introduce itself but my old acquaintance from NQ, a single Tawny Coster flip-flapping by. I couldn’t wait to get off a despatch to Wesley - a “Mate, guess what I just saw” missive, which, due to the marvels of modern technology was achieved in no time flat. I had little opportunity, however, to bask in my glory as Wes was just on the point of sending me a link to the Butterfly and Other Invertebrates Club’s website. This informed me that the Tawny Coster had been recorded at the Mount Basalt Environmental Reserve near Millmerran on Sunday 08 of this month but three days before mine. Our messages must nearly have crossed in cyberspace.

I was hoping mine would be a first for SEQ but “missed by that much,” to quote Maxwell Smart. And there is also a recent record from Gatton but pre or post Hodgson Vale I know not. I’ve no other particulars. There have even been a couple of unsubstantiated claims from northern New South Wales (W. Jenkinson pers. comm., 18.11.20). Anyway, I’m consoling myself with mine being a first for Toowoomba (hopefully), but suspect Toowoomba, Millmerran and Gatton will all be just one more dot on the map, as this little jetsetter continues its peregrinations south. Java to Toowoomba in only nine years – not too bad!

 

References:                 

Braby Michael F. (2016) The Complete Guide to Butterflies of Australia, (second edition). CSIRO Publishing

Braby M. F, Bertelsmeier C., Sanderson C. and Thistleton B.M. (2013). Spatial distribution and range   expansion of the Tawny Coster butterfly, Acraea terpsicore (Linnaeus, 1758) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), in South-East Asia and Australia in Insect Conservation and Diversity, Vol. 7, Issue 2

Coffs Harbour Butterfly House’s website: butterflyhouse.com.au

Tawny Coster, Queensland Ranger Association Muster 2017, Magnetic Island

Chasing butterflies Lockyer Valley with Rod Hobson and Wes Jenkinson

 (Both photos taken by Robert Ashdown)