37 Dakhan Yellow Orange-tip

August 15, 2023

Ixias pyrene sesia (Fabricius, 1777) മഞ്ഞ ചെഞ്ചിറകൻ

Malayalam Name	:	മഞ്ഞ ചെഞ്ചിറകൻ
Family	:	Pieridae
Sub-family	:	Pierinae
Tribe	:	Leptociaini
Order	:	Lepidoptera

DISTRIBUTION

South Asia and South EastAsia

STATUS: Not common

HABITAT

It is common in dry deciduous forests, scrub and fallow lands and found throughout the year.

HABITS

Tts

IDENTIFICATION FEATURES

Small to medium size Yellow and white butterfly with wingspan 50-70 mm. The species wingspan is between 50 and 55 mm.
Dry-season brood:

Male upperside: deep sulphur-yellow. Forewing: base and basal half of costa thickly irrorated with black scales; apical half of the wing black, with an enclosed, large, irregularly triangular, orange-coloured patch, the apex of which is more or less broadly rounded and blunt;

Underside: a darker yellow, sparsely irrorated (sprinkled) with fusco-ferruginous short strigae and minute spots. Forewing: base and posterior area broadly, with a whitish pale virescent (greenish) tint; the strigae and minute spots most numerous towards the apex and along the termen; interspaces 4, 5, 6 and 8 with a curved sub-apical series of small, rounded, dull ferruginous spots and a similar spot on the discocellulars.

Hindwing also with a ferruginous spot on the discocellulars, followed by a postdiscal series of similar spots in interspaces 3 to 8, all or most of them centred with white; the spots in interspaces 5, 6 and 8 the largest, those in 5 and 6 often coalescent. Antennae and thorax anteriorly dull ferruginous, thorax posteriorly and abdomen above fuscous black; head, thorax and abdomen beneath yellow .

Female upperside: white faintly tinged with yellow.Underside: similar to that in the male, with similar markings, the ground colour a dark dull ochraceous, the fusco-ferruginous strigae more numerous.

Wet-season brood: Upperside in both male and female differs in the broader, more pronounced, black terminal edging to the hindwing, which is often remarkably broad, and in the female by the ground colour which is pale yellow. Underside: the fusco-ferruginous strigae and spots often subobsolete, occasionally entirely absent in the male

SIMILAR SPECIES

LARVAL HOST PLANTS