Mallee Bronze Azure butterfly

A butterfly raised by ants

Raakajilm and adjoining Hattah-Kulkyne National Park are home to the largest known population of the Mallee Bronze Azure butterfly (Ogyris subterrestris), the only Victorian population and one of only three in Australia.

This remarkable, endangered butterfly has no food plant. Instead, its caterpillars trick Sugar Ants into raising the caterpillars underground, where they feed on ant larvae before emerging from the ant nest as a butterfly.

Listed as endangered in Victoria and ranked among Australia’s butterflies most likely to go extinct, the species was dealt a further blow when its Victorian breeding sites were hit by Murray River floods in 2022, and then by bushfire in 2026. Our work here matters.