Catopsilia pyranthe
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| iMottled Emigrant | ||||||||||||||
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 Mottled Emigrant from South India
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| Catopsilia pyranthe Latreille, 1758 |
The Mottled Emigrant , Catopsilia pyranthe is a medium sized butterfly of the Family Pieridae found in South Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of Australia.
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[edit] Description
[edit] Male
Upperside: chalky-white, slightly tinted in some specimens with green. Fore wing: with or without a discocellular black spot, that varies in size; costa and termen sometimes without a black margin; occasionally the costa has its apical third narrowly black, broadened slightly at the apex with black spots between the anterior veins; or again, the costa may be narrowly black, the apex very broadly so, and this colour continued down the termen but narrowed posteriorly. Hind wing: sometimes immaculate, but generally with narrow terminal black spots at the apices of the veins, these often reduced to mere dots, or again so broadened as to coalesce into a narrow terminal black margin.
Underside: ground-colour similar, suffused on the anterior half of the fore and over the whole surface of the hind wing with a greenish tint that varies to an ochraceous yellow, and, except in the very palest specimens, is evenly irrorated over the greenish or ochraceous-tinted areas with transverse, short, reddish-brown strigae; both fore and hind wings with generally an obscure discocellular reddish-brown spot or indication thereof.
[edit] Female
Upperside as in the male, but sometimes with a suffusion of pale greenish yellow on the terminal third or fourth only of both fore and hind wings, rarely of that tint throughout. Fore wing: always with a discocellular black spot that varies very much in size; costa sometimes narrowly black with the basal half pinkish, in other specimens narrowly black throughout, the black broadened at the apex and continued along the anterior half of the termen in a series of inwardly-pointed black spots; or again, the costa may be more broadly black, that colour widened considerably at the apex and continued broadly down the termen to vein 3, then suddenly narrowed to a slender line at the tornus; in most specimens there is an anterior postdiscal short black macular baud; in the dark forms this coalesce with the black on apex and termen. Hind wing: sometimes immaculate, sometimes with a series of terminal spots at the apices of the veins, sometimes with a narrow dusky-black terminal band broadest near the apex, narrowed posteriorly to a slender line at the tornus. In the very dark specimens there is in addition an ill-defined, short anterior postdiscal macular black band.
Underside: as in the male, with similar variations, but in addition in most specimens the discocellular spots are well-defined with an outer red ring that encircles a silvery spot; on the hind wing one or two similar spots on each side of the discocellulars; generally also both wings are crossed by a transverse postdiscal line of minute red spots, which on the fore wing is confined to the anterior portion, on the hind wing is nearly complete. In both sexes: antennae reddish, head and thorax anteriorly brown, thorax clothed posteriorly with long white hairs, abdomen white: beneath: the palpi, thorax and abdomen white.[1]
[edit] Life history
The host plants of the species include Cassia species such as C. fistula, C. javanica, C. garrettiana, C. bakeriana, C. auriculata, Senna alata, Crotolaria spp., Ormocarpum cochinchinense, Sesbania spp. and Colocasia. [2]
The development period from egg to adult is 22 to 29 days allowing upto 11-12 generations a year.[3]
Larva: " Long, somewhat depressed, rough, green, with a white lateral line and above it a black line more or less conspicuous, formed by minute black shining tubercles. In short, this larva in very like a big specimen of a Eurema hecabe " [1]
Pupa. "Much stouter (i.e. than that of Eurema hecabe, and the keel formed by the wing-cases much less pronounced. The normal colour is pale green with a yellow lateral line. We have never found it on any plant except Cassia occidentalism It habitually rests on the upperside along the midrib, like almost all Pierine larvae." Davidson and Aitken, quoted in Bingham.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Bingham, C. T. (1907) Fauna of British India. Volume 2
- ^ Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants [1] Accessed September 2006
- ^ J. B. Atluri, S. P. Venkata Ramana and C. Subba Reddi 2004 Ecobiology of the tropical pierid butterfly Catopsilia pyranthe. Current Science 86(3) [2]
