Dakhan Dark-branded Bushbrown

Mycalesis mineus polydecta (Cramer, [1777]) 

Malayalam Name	:	ഇരുൾ വരയൻ തവിടൻ
Order	:	Lepidoptera
Super Family	:	Papilionoidae (Butterflies)
Family	:	Nympalidae
Sub Family	:	Satyrinae

DISTRIBUTION :  Tropical Asia

STATUS: Not rare

HABITAT : 

HABITS 

The 

IDENTIFICATION  FEATURES: 

Wet-season form: 

Upperside dark Vandyke brown; forewings and hindwings with slender subterminal and terminal pale lines. Forewing with a single white-centred, fulvous-ringed, black ocellus generally set in a square pale area, in interspace 2, occasionally a similar smaller ocellus without any pale surrounding area in interspace 5. Hindwing uniform sometimes with one or two obscure postmedian ocelli.

.Underside: ground colour similar; forewings and hindwings crossed by a transverse dusky-white discal band, well-defined inwardly, diffuse outwardly, followed by a postdiscal series of ocelli surrounded by a dusky-yellowish, sometimes purplish white, line; the ocelli are similar to the ocelli on the upperside, and vary from two to four on the forewing and from five to seven (the preapical two being sometimes obsolescent) on the hindwing; of these latter the posterior four, not three as in Mycalesis perseus, are in a straight line; 

Dry-season form: 

Upperside similar to that in the wet-season form, but paler. Underside from ochraceous brown to dusky brown of a darker shade; basal half of the wings conspicuously darker than the outer portions; the whole surface irrorated (sprinkled) with fine brown striae; sometimes a distinct dark discal band crosses both wings; ocelli nearly obsolete, indicated by minute white specks, the posterior four on the hindwing in a straight line as in the wet-season form. 

SIMILAR SPECIES : 

LARVAL HOST PLANTS

Poaceae, Setaria barbata (Poaceae).

LIFE CYCLE

MORE IMAGES

 

Mating pairs

Dry form Male

dry form female

Courtesy

Write up:Wikipaedia

Images: TNHS

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