Oriental Common Evening Brown

Melanitis leda leda (Linnaeus, 1758)

Common Evening Brown
wet season form
Malayalam Name           :      കരിയില ശലഭം
Family                             :      Nymphalidae
Sub Family                     :      Satyrinae
Order                              :      Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moth)

DISTRIBUTION:The species found in Africa, South Asia and South-east Asia extending to parts of Australia
STATUS: a common species
HABITAT :Found in the lowland regions to mid-hills 
HABIT:  found flying at dusk. The flight of this species is erratic. It has both Dry and Wet Season Forms
IDENTIFICATION FEATURES:

Wet Season Form:

Forewing: apex subacute; termen slightly angulated just below apex, or straight. Upperside brown. Forewing with two large subapical black spots, each with a smaller spot outwardly of pure white inwardly bordered by a ferruginous interrupted lunule; costal margin narrowly pale. Hindwing with a dark, white-centred, fulvous-ringed ocellus subterminally in interspace two, and the apical ocellus, sometimes also others of the ocelli, on the underside, showing through

Underside paler, densely covered with transverse dark brown striae; a discal curved dark brown narrow band on forewing; a post-discal similar oblique band, followed by a series of ocelli: four on the forewing, that in interspace 8 the largest; six on the hindwing, the apical and subtornal the largest.

Dry-season form: 

Forewing: apex obtuse and more or less falcate; termen posterior to falcation straight or sinuous. Upperside: ground colour similar to that in the wet-season form, the markings, especially the ferruginous lunules inwardly bordering the black sub-apical spots on forewing, larger, more extended below and above the black costa. Hindwing: the ocellus in interspace 2 absent, posteriorly replaced by three or four minute white subterminal spots.[3]

Underside varies in colour greatly. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen in both seasonal forms brown or greyish brown: the antennae annulated with white, ochraceous at apex 

LARVAL HOST PLANT: 
The caterpillars feed on a wide variety of grasses including rice (Oryza sativa), Poaceae, Apluda spp., Bambusa spp., Brachiaria mutica, Cyrtococcum spp., Digitaria spp., Eleusine spp., Oplismenus compositus, Oryza spp., Oryza sativa, Panicum spp., P. repens, Pennisetum spp., P. glaucum, P. purpureum, Rottboellia cochinchinensis, Saccharum officinarum, Setaria barbata, Zea Mays (Poaceae).
LIFE CYCLE

MORE IMAGES   



Common Evening Brown
wet form

wet form

dry form

dry form

dry form

dry form






Courtesy 
Write up:Wikipaedia
Images: TNHS

കേരള വനം വന്യജീവി വകുപ്പ്  
മാങ്കുളം ഡിവിഷൻ

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