Painted Sawtooth

Prioneris sita (Felder & Felder, 1865)

Anila Manalil, Painted Sawtooth

Malayalam Name     

:

കാട്ടു വിലാസിനി

Common Name

:

Painted Sawtooth

Order 

:

Lepidoptera

Super Family            

:

Papilionoidae (Butterflies)

Family              

: 

Pieridae

Sub Family

:

Pierinae

Tribe

:

Scientific Name

:

Prioneris sita
DISTRIBUTION
Western Ghats and Sri Lanka. Prioneris sita is only found in a small stretch of the Western Ghats, ranging from West-Central Karnataka, to the Nilgiris and Wayanad, south to Nilambur. It is a rare visitor to Travancore.
STATUS:   
Endemic to Western Ghats and Sri Lanka.
HABITAT
Endemic to Western Ghats and Sri Lanka.
HABITS
It mimics Common Jezebel, but mud puddles unlike Jezebel.
IDENTIFICATION  FEATURES
Medium size white butter fly with wingspan 85-90 mm.

Upperside: White with a slight greenish tint. Forewings and hindwings: The markings of the underside faintly visible through the wing.

Underside: Forewing: White, costa black and the apex suffuse with yellow. Hindwing: Rich chrome yellow up to a postdiscal band. Beyond this the ground color is white with a series of large terminal vermillion-red spots. These spots are rectangular or truncated cone shaped.

SIMILAR SPECIES
Indian Jezebel (Delias eucharis) The two can be told apart from the shape of the hindwing. The painted sawtooth has a much broader hindwing. The orange-red spots on the margin of the hindwing, in the painted sawtooth, are more squarish in shape whereas in the common Jezebel they are arrowhead shaped. The painted sawtooth also flies faster and inhabits dense forests

 
 LARVAL HOST PLANTS
Capparis tenera, C. zeylanica, C. spinosa (Capparaceae).

LIFE CYCLE

MORE IMAGES



Painted Sawtooth
Anila Manalil
Painted Sawtooth
Anila Manalil, Painted Sawtooth

Painted Sawtooth
Anila Manalil, Painted Sawtooth
Painted Sawtooth
Painted Sawtooth -Side View - Bernad M Thampan

Courtesy 
Write up:Wikipaedia
Images: TNHS

കേരള വനം വന്യജീവി വകുപ്പ്  
മാങ്കുളം ഡിവിഷൻ

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