Small Salmon Arab

Colotis amata (Fabricius, 1775) - ചെറുപിംഗലൻ



Malayalam Name 

:

ചെറുപിംഗലൻ

Family 

:

Pieridae

Sub-family             

:

Pierinae

Tribe                     

Leptociaini

Order

:

Lepidoptera


DISTRIBUTION
               Asia and Africa
STATUS:   Not common
HABITAT
Th
HABITS
Tts
IDENTIFICATION  FEATURES
Small size Black and white butterfly with wingspan 35-50 mm.  
The male's upperside has a salmon-pink ground colour. The costa on the forewing is black and thickly overlaid with greyish or pinkish scales; a black spot at apex of cell, which may be large and quadrate or smaller and lunate; termen broadly black, with an enclosed double transverse series of spots of the ground colour the inner series consists of a large spot in interspace 1, two very small spots in interspaces 2 and 3, one in each, and four larger anterior spots placed in a curve; the spots in the outer series are variable in number, but generally there is one in each interspace, these are more or less linear in shape. Hindwing: a band on costal margin extended to just within the upper margin of the cell, covered with dense black specialized scales; this black band joined onto a broad similarly coloured terminal band of ordinary scales, that becomes more or less diffuse and powdery posteriorly, and encloses a double series of small spots of the ground colour the inner series often obsolescent, in some specimens entirely absent; dorsum heavily irrorated with fuscous scales, the irroration extended onto the disc, which has therefore generally a greyish appearance. 
The female is polymorphic. Form 1. Upperside: ground colour paler than in the male, in some specimens quite ochraceous outwardly; all the markings similar, but duller in tint. The hindwing, of course, without the black costal band of specialized scales, the ground colour extended up to the costal margin. Underside similar to that of the male, but the ground colour very much paler and more ochraceous than green. In some specimens, in addition to the black spots in interspaces 1 and 2 on forewing, there is an anterior postdiscal fuscous curved band. Hindwing: discocellular spot larger than in the 3 and annular; a curved discal series of reddish spots from costa to dorsum. Form 2. Similar to female form 1, but the ground colour pale primrose yellow to pure white. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen in both forms much as in the male.
SIMILAR SPECIES  Con
LARVAL HOST PLANTS
 Toddalia asiatica (Rutaceae); Azima tetracantha, Salvadora oleoides, S. persica (Salvadoraceae).

LIFE CYCLE

MORE IMAGES
























Courtesy 
Write up:Wikipaedia
Images: TNHS

കേരള വനം വന്യജീവി വകുപ്പ്  
മാങ്കുളം ഡിവിഷൻ

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