Colotis eucharis

"Plain orange-tip" redirects here. For the other butterfly with this common name, see Colotis aurora.
Plain orange-tip
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Pieridae
Genus: Colotis
Species: C. eucharis
Binomial name
Colotis eucharis
(Fabricius, 1775)
Synonyms
  • Papilio eucharis Fabricius, 1775
  • Teracolus eucharis
  • Euchloe coeneos Hübner, [1819]
  • Pieris titea Godart, 1819
  • Teracolus pseudevanthe Butler, 1876
  • Teracolus pallens Moore, 1877

Colotis eucharis, the plain orange-tip, is a small butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites. It is found in India.

Description

Male

The upperside of the males has a pure white ground colour. The forewing has the base and costa speckled with black scales near the base; has a broad apical orange-yellow patch, with the inner edge straight and margined with gamboge yellow; the patch is sometimes without speckles, but often bears a black diffuse spot on its lower inner edge which may or may not extend to the termen below the orange; costa, apex and termen, the latter nearly up to the tornus, edged and festooned beyond the orange area with black.[1] Hindwing of the male has black spots at the apices of the veins that vary in size and end on the termen, also a diffuse preapical black spot on the costa.

Underside is pure white in most specimens, suffused, except on the disc of the forewing, with pinkish yellow, and at base of the same wing with pure sulphur yellow; apical orange patch and black terminal markings on the upperside of the forewing show through by transparency, the former crossed by a sinuous fuscous band that ends in a black diffuse spot. Hindwing is shaded with ochraceous at base and with a fuscous preapical spot on costa, also a few scattered transverse fuscous striations and small spots.[1]

Many specimens have the preapical spot continued as an obscure fuscous band across the wing and bear a series of large terminal fuscous spots that correspond to the black spots on the upperside. Both forewing and hindwings with black discocellular dots. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen black; antennae speckled with white on the sides, head and thorax clothed with short greyish-brown hairs; beneath the palpi, thorax and abdomen white.[1]

Female
Female

Female has the ground colour similar to the male; the markings differ from those of the male as follows: Upperside, forewing: base and costa more heavily irrorated with greyish-black scales; discocellular spot larger; apical area black, with three enclosed elongate orange spots; inner margin of black area irregularly sinuate and diffuse, extended shortly inwards in interspace 3; a transverse black spot across middle of interspace 1. Hindwing: base irrorated more sparsely than in the forewing with greyish-black scales; preapical spot on costa and terminal spots much larger; in a few specimens there is an obscure transverse posterior discal fascia.

Underside: markings similar to but very much broader, more heavily marked, and more prominent than those in the male; the transverse fuscous strife and dots more numerous. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen as in the male.[1]

Wingspan 36–50 mm.

Found in central and southern India from Jabalpur and Bombay to Travancore; Ceylon.

In Bangalore

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 Bingham, C.T. (1907). The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. II (1st ed.). London: Taylor and Francis, Ltd.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Colotis eucharis.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/19/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.