Banded Cats Eye/ Tamil Cats Eye

August 21, 2023

Zipaetis saitis Hewitson, 1863

Malayalam Name	:	പൂച്ചകണ്ണി
Common Name	;	Banded Cats Eye/ Tamil Cats Eye
Order	:	Lepidoptera
Super Family	:	Papilionoidae (Butterflies)
Family	:	Nympalidae
Sub Family	:	Satyrinae

DISTRIBUTION : South India

STATUS:

HABITAT :

HABITS :

IDENTIFICATION FEATURES:

Medium-sized brown butterfly with wingspan of 640 to 74 mm. Upperside in fresh specimens velvet black, or brown to light brown in the female. Forewing with a broad, oblique, snow-white band from middle of costa to near apex of interspace 1, inwardly emarginate in its lower third. Hindwing with a similar broad white postdiscal band parallel to the posterior two-thirds of the terminal margin, the outer margin of the band emarginate between the veins. Underside similar, ground colour paler; the white bands as on the upperside; both forewings and hindwings with a subterminal sinuous pale line. Hindwing with a row of five ocelli enclosed in a common silvery narrow band, on the inner side of the white band; each ocellus with a white centre, an inner ring of ochraceous, and an outer ring of blackish brown; the ocelli at the each end of the row the smallest, the preapical very large and bi-pupilled. Antennae ochraceous red; head, thorax and abdomen dark brown.

SIMILAR SPECIES :

Nil

LARVAL HOST PLANTS

Grass (Poaceae). Ochlandra scriptoria, O. travancorica (Poaceae).

LIFE CYCLE

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