Colotis danae (Fabricius, 1775) ചോര ചിറകൻ

Malayalam Name	:	ചോര ചിറകൻ
Family	:	Pieridae
Sub-family	:	Pierinae
Tribe	:	Leptociaini
Order	:	Lepidoptera

DISTRIBUTION

Asia and Africa.

STATUS: Not common

HABITAT

It is common in dry deciduous forests, scrub and fallow lands and found throughout the year.

HABITS

The characteristics of this species vary according to the season in which the eggs are laid

IDENTIFICATION FEATURES

Small to medium size Yellow and white butterfly with wingspan 45-50 mm. Colouration very variable, especially in the female, from orange to red..
male:
Upperside: white, base of wings generally irrorated (speckled), but to a varying extent, with black scales.

Forewing: apex broadly carmine, edged internally and externally with black,

Hindwing: uniform, except for a series of black terminal spots.

Underside: white. Forewing: base of cell washed with sulphur-yellow; spot on discocellulars as on the upperside; apical carmine area of the upperside represented by an ochraceous-pink patch, it is crossed near its inner edge by an obliquely placed series of four or five spots that vary in colour from pale ferruginous to black. . Hindwing: the ground colour generally lightly, often heavily, suffused with ochraceous pink, sometimes pure white; a small spot on the discocellulars pale ferruginous to black, sometimes annular and centred with carmine.
Female
Upperside: white; base of wings lightly, often heavily, irrorated with greyish-black scales. In some specimens the irroration is very scanty, in others it occupies fully a third of the wings from base and extends as a broad band parallel to the dorsum on the hindwing. Forewing: an apical carmine patch as in the male but smaller, sometimes reduced to a mere row of preapical pale rosy streaks, but always bordered externally, and generally internally also, by black of varying width. In some specimens the inner black border is very narrow, in others broad, and in a very few entirely absent. The outer border again in some specimens is inwardly festooned, and may be either broad or comparatively narrow. Discocellular spot as in the male but larger, followed by an anterior, postdiscal, macular, curved, black band, the upper spots of which cross the carmine area, or when the carmine area is reduced to short streaks the band crosses the black internal edging to it, showing up in a darker tint than the edging itself; lastly, a black transverse, somewhat diffuse, spot in interspaces 1 and 2. Hindwing: with a dusky spot on the discocellulars, a black, macular, discal, curved, more or less incomplete band, and a terminal row of black spots that in some specimens are connected and form a continuous band. All these markings are generally diffuse.^[3]

SIMILAR SPECIES Little (Small) Orange-Tip Colotis etrida

LARVAL HOST PLANTS