*Cabbage White Pieris rapae
Wingspan: 44 mm
Sighted at Claire Cottage: Every month of the Year but less frequently in the cooler months.
Distribution: Southern QLD, NSW, VIC, Southern SA, parts of Southern WA, Tasmania and increasingly scattered locations within the Tropics.
Wingspan: 44 mm
Sighted at Claire Cottage: Every month of the Year but less frequently in the cooler months.
Distribution: Southern QLD, NSW, VIC, Southern SA, parts of Southern WA, Tasmania and increasingly scattered locations within the Tropics.
A female Cabbage White feeding on Brassica flowers
You probably know the Cabbage White caterpillar as a pest of your Brassicas
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A male Cabbage White feeding on Salvia
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A male Cabbage White feeding on a Wallflower
Many cocoons of the larva of the Parasitic Chalcid wasp, Pteromalus puparum, having developed inside the Cabbage White caterpillar photographed here.
*Cabbage White Pieris rapae
Wingspan: 44 mm
Sighted at Claire Cottage: Every month of the Year but less frequently in the cooler months.
Distribution: Southern QLD, NSW, VIC, Southern SA, parts of Southern WA, Tasmania and increasingly scattered locations within the Tropics.
Butterfly Sightings:
Larva Sightings:
Larval food plants:
An introduced butterfly whose natural distribution is Europe, northern Asia and northern Africa. It was first recorded in Australia in 1929 in Victoria, it had already been recorded in New Zealand. A species that all vegetable gardeners know as a pest of cabbages, broccoli, etc.
The Cabbage White has an erratic, relatively slow, flight usually keeping low over vegetation. Their green larva is pictured above.
Helping with control of this very common butterfly is a parasitic Chalcid Wasp. The picture above shows the pale yellow cluster of the cocoons of this wasp's larvae which had earlier emerged from the Cabbage White caterpillar in which they have fed. Do not destroy these small pale yellow cocoons for they will hatch in due course, mate and go in search of more Cabbage White caterpillars to lay their eggs on. These eggs will in due course hatch into Chalcid wasps larva. NB Any caterpillar that has been the host for the larva of a parasitic wasp or fly will die once these larva appear and pupate, the unfortunate caterpillar is doomed to die once fertile parasitic eggs are deposited on it,
Similar butterflies:
Pearl Whites Elodina sp., whilst they lack the black spots on the forewings they are often a similar size; the migratory Yellow Albatross Appias paulina is a larger white butterfly with similar looks but is a much faster flyer. The male also has two black spots on its forewings.
Flight habit: Throughout the day.
Last autumn sighting - Dorrigo Plateau: 10/04/18, a newly emerged wild specimen 30/04/20,
Wingspan: 44 mm
Sighted at Claire Cottage: Every month of the Year but less frequently in the cooler months.
Distribution: Southern QLD, NSW, VIC, Southern SA, parts of Southern WA, Tasmania and increasingly scattered locations within the Tropics.
Butterfly Sightings:
- CLAIRE COTTAGE: Because this very common butterfly may be seen during any month of the year we have ceased keeping detailed sighting records.
- DORRIGO PLATEAU: As for Claire Cottage.
Larva Sightings:
- CLAIRE COTTAGE: May be found in all months of the year.
- DORRIGO PLATEAU: As for Claire Cottage.
Larval food plants:
- CLAIRE COTTAGE: *BRASSICEAE - Brassica spp., Cakile edentula, Cakile maritima, Hirschfeldia incana, Lepidium aricanum, Sisymbrium officiale, CAPPARACEAE - Cleime spp., RESEDACEAE - Reseda; TROPAEOLACEAE - Tropaeolum sp.
- DORRIGO PLATEAU: (as for Claire Cottage)
- ELSEWHERE: (as for Claire Cottage)
An introduced butterfly whose natural distribution is Europe, northern Asia and northern Africa. It was first recorded in Australia in 1929 in Victoria, it had already been recorded in New Zealand. A species that all vegetable gardeners know as a pest of cabbages, broccoli, etc.
The Cabbage White has an erratic, relatively slow, flight usually keeping low over vegetation. Their green larva is pictured above.
Helping with control of this very common butterfly is a parasitic Chalcid Wasp. The picture above shows the pale yellow cluster of the cocoons of this wasp's larvae which had earlier emerged from the Cabbage White caterpillar in which they have fed. Do not destroy these small pale yellow cocoons for they will hatch in due course, mate and go in search of more Cabbage White caterpillars to lay their eggs on. These eggs will in due course hatch into Chalcid wasps larva. NB Any caterpillar that has been the host for the larva of a parasitic wasp or fly will die once these larva appear and pupate, the unfortunate caterpillar is doomed to die once fertile parasitic eggs are deposited on it,
Similar butterflies:
Pearl Whites Elodina sp., whilst they lack the black spots on the forewings they are often a similar size; the migratory Yellow Albatross Appias paulina is a larger white butterfly with similar looks but is a much faster flyer. The male also has two black spots on its forewings.
Flight habit: Throughout the day.
Last autumn sighting - Dorrigo Plateau: 10/04/18, a newly emerged wild specimen 30/04/20,
