Mycalesis anaxias anaxias Hewitson, 1862 —

Malayalam Name	:	ചോലത്തവിടൻ
Common Name	:	Sahyadri White-bar Bushbrown
Order	:	Lepidoptera
Super Family	:	Papilionoidae (Butterflies)
Family	:	Nympalidae
Sub Family	:	Satyrinae
Tribe	:
Scientific Name	:	Mycalesis anaxias anaxias

DISTRIBUTION : Species found South Asia and South East Asia. The sub species is seen in Western Ghats

STATUS: sub species is endemic to Western Ghats

HABITAT : High elevation Shola grass lands

HABITS

IDENTIFICATION FEATURES:

Wet-season form: male and female: Upperside dull Vandyke brown, paler in the female; subterminal and terminal fine lines on both forewings and hindwings fulvescent (tawny): cilia brown. Wingspan: 51–60 mm.
Forewing with an oblique white preapical short band not quite reaching either the costa or the termen. Underside: forewing: basal area up to the white band, and in a transverse line from lower end of band to dorsum, blackish brown; terminal margin beyond broadly paler brown; a white-centred fulvous-ringed black ocellus interspace 2, and two preapical, smaller similar ocelli, followed by a very sinuous subterminal and a straighter terminal dark brown line.
Hindwing: basal two-thirds blackish brown, terminal border broadly paler, bearing normally seven ocelli similar to those on the forewing, and subterminal and terminal dark brown line.

Dry-season form: Upperside as in the wet-season form. Underside differs in the ocelli being indistinct or absent, and the subterminal and terminal dark lines on both forewing and hindwing absent or very faint; the terminal margins are broadly rufescent (reddish) brown, fading inwardly into lilacine, the oblique white bar on the forewing outwardly diffuse. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen dark brown; the antennae ochraceous towards apex.

SIMILAR SPECIES :

LARVAL HOST PLANTS

Poaceae, Oplismenus compositus (Poaceae).

LIFE CYCLE