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Small Citrus Butterfly

“With the amount of attention and nutrient that most folk give their citrus trees it’s no wonder that they get plenty of interest from the insect creatures in the garden. I spotted a lovely black and white butterfly with red splashes on its lower wings in my garden this week. Sitting on an olive tree and them some citrus trees. After watching it lay some solitary round yellow eggs on a Kumquat I checked it out in my references to find that it’s Eloppone anactus the “Small citrus butterfly”.

With a wing span of 10cm, hardly small either and those eggs hatch to produce voracious black-white and grey striped caterpillars that eat the leaves from your citrus. Soft control options are to spray with PestOil when the sun has gone down or spray with Dipel HG the bacillus that rots the caterpillar stomach out. If you use that, just target spray the citrus, otherwise it will take out the orange monarch butterflies too. Of course if you love the butterfly as I do, you’ll probability do nothing; after all I reckon there are enough Kumquats for both of us.