Oriental Peacock Pansy

August 22, 2023

Junonia almana almana (Linnaeus, 1758) മയിൽക്കണ്ണി

Malayalam Name	:	മയിൽക്കണ്ണി
Order	:	Lepidoptera
Super Family	:	Papilionoidae (Butterflies)
Family	:	Nympalidae
Sub Family	:	Nymphalinae
DISTRIBUTION The species found in South Asia and South East Asia. STATUS: Common HABITAT HABITS It exists in two distinct adult forms, which differ chiefly in the patterns on the underside of the wings; the dry-season form has few markings, while the wet-season form has additional eyespots and lines. IDENTIFICATION FEATURES The adult butterfly has a wingspan of 54–62 mm and exhibits seasonal polyphenism. Dry-season form "Upperside rich orange-yellow. Fore wing with a pale dusky and a much darker short transverse bar with lateral jet-black marginal lines across cell, another somewhat similar bar defining the discocellulars; costal margin, an inner and an outer subterminal line, and a terminal line dusky black; a large minutely white-centred ocellus with an inner slender and outer black ring on disc in interspace 2; two similar but smaller geminate subapical ocelli with an obscure pale spot above them and a short oblique bar connecting them to the black on the costa. Hind wing: a small minutely white-centred and very slenderly black-ringed discal ocellus in interspace 2, with a very much larger pale yellow and black-ringed ocellus above it spreading over interspaces 4, 5 and 6, the centre of this ocellus inwardly brownish orange, outwardly bluish black, with two minute white spots in vertical order between the two colours; finally postdiscal subterminal and terminal black sinuous lines. "Underside ochraceous brown, very variable. In most specimens the cell of the fore wing is crossed by three dark sinuous bands, the outermost along the discocellulars; these are very faint in some; both fore and hind wings crossed by a basal and a discal pale sinuous line, the latter margined outwardly by a dark shade, which is traversed by an obscure somewhat obsolescent row of dark spots, and outwardly bounded by a subterminal sinuous line, the dark shade in many cases spreading on the fore wing to the terminal edge of the wing; on the hind wing the subterminal line meets the discal in an acute angle at the tornus. Antennae dark brown; head, thorax and abdomen more or less orange-brown; paler beneath. SIMILAR SPECIES LARVAL HOST PLANTS Acanthus spp., Barleria spp., Hygrophila auriculata, Hygrophila costata (Acanthaceae), Gloxinia spp. (Gesneriaceae), Osbeckia spp. (Melastomataceae), Mimulus gracilis (Phrymaceae), Oryza sativa, Pennisetum spp., Pennisetum glaucum (Poaceae), Phyla nodiflora (Verbenaceae). LIFE CYCLE