Dakhan Bamboo Treebrown

August 20, 2023

Lethe europa europa (Fabricius, 1775)

Malayalam Name	:	മുളം തവിടൻ
Common Name	;	Dakhan Bamboo Tree Brown
Order	:	Lepidoptera
Super Family	:	Papilionoidae (Butterflies)
Family	:	Nympalidae
Sub Family	:	Satyrinae

DISTRIBUTION : Asia

STATUS:

HABITAT : Grassy areas

HABITS

IDENTIFICATION FEATURES

Medium size brown butterfly with wing span 65-75 mm/Inner third of hindwing covered with long brown hairs.

Male upperside rich dark brown. Forewing with the oblique short white discal fascia on the underside showing through, two obscure black spots or ocelli, followed by two prominent white spots, the upper one double, some black markings margined outwardly with pale dusky brown along terminal margins of both forewing and hindwing and an obscure subterminal pale line on the latter.

Underside very dark blackish brown; the wings crossed subbasally by a slender lilacine-white straight line, followed on forewing by an oblique short white discal fascia, and on both forewing and hindwing by a postdiscal series of large black ocelli and a terminal, somewhat ochraceous, narrow band bordered on the inner side by a more or less silvery purple line. The series on both forewing and hindwing margined inwardly and outwardly by silvery purple lunular lines, on the forewing curved inwards, on the hindwing curved outwards; the ocelli on forewing confluent, black, non-pupilled, on the hindwing black with disintegrate silvery-speckled irregular centres on a brown ground.

Female similar: forewing on upperside with an oblique broad white discal band, hindwing with a postdiscal incomplete series of black spots. Underside similar to the underside in the male, markings and ocelli larger.