Sahyadri Common Five-ring

August 09, 2023

Ypthima baldus madrasa (Fabricius, 1775)

Malayalam Name	:	സഹ്യാദ്രി പഞ്ചനേത്രി
Common Name	;	Common Five Ring
Order	:	Lepidoptera
Super Family	:	Papilionoidae (Butterflies)
Family	:	Nympalidae
Sub Family	:	Satyrinae

DISTRIBUTION : The South India

STATUS: The sub species is Endemic to Western Ghats

HABITAT :

HABITS :

IDENTIFICATION FEATURES:

Medium-sized brown butterfly with wingspan of 35 to 45 mm.

Wet-season form (in India)

Male: Upperside brown, both forewing and hindwing with terminal margins much darker, and generally with more or less distinct subbasal and discal dark bands. Forewing with a large, slightly oblique, oval, bi-pupilled, yellow-ringed black, pre-apical ocellus. Hindwing with two postdiscal, round, uni-pupilled, similar but smaller ocelli, and very often one or two minute tornal ocelli also.

Underside similar to the underside in Y. philomela but the ochraceous-white ground colour paler, transverse brown strice coarser, the ocelli on the hindwing more distinctly in echelon, two tornal, two median, and two preapical, and on both forewing and hindwing more or less distinctly defined, subbasal, discal and subterminal brown transverse bands.

Female: Differs on the upperside in having the area surrounding or bordering the ocelli on both forewing and hindwing paler, closely irrorated (sprinkled) with brown striae, the discal transverse band generally clearly defined, and very often both the tornal, and at least one of the apical, ocelli distinct. On the underside it is paler than the male, and has the subbasal, discal and subterminal transverse dark bands more clearly defined.

Dry-season form (in India)

Males and females: Upperside very similar to the above, paler; in the female often the ground colour ochraceous white, closely irrorated with brown striae; ocelli as in the wet-season form, but those on the hindwing often non-pupilled. Underside also paler than in the wet-season form, the subbasal, discal and subterminal bands on the whole more prominent; ocelli on the hindwing reduced to mere specks.

SIMILAR SPECIES :

Similar to Nilgiri Four Ring, Common Four Ring

LARVAL HOST PLANTS

Grass (Poaceae).

LIFE CYCLE

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