Tirumala limniace
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 Blue Tiger, Tirumala limniace
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| Tirumala limniace Cramer, 1775 |
The Blue Tiger (Tirumala limniace) is a butterfly found in India that belongs to the Crows and Tigers, that is, the Danaid group of the Brush-footed butterflies family. This butterfly shows gregarious migratory behaviour in southern India.
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[edit] Description
Upperside black, with bluish-white semihyaline spots and streaks. Fore wing: interspace 1 two streaks, sometimes coalescent, with a spot beyond cell: a streak from base and an outwardly indented spot at its apex; a large oval spot at base of interspace 2, another at base of interspace 3, with a smaller spot beyond it towards termen; five obliquely placed preapical streaks, and somewhat irregular subterminal and terminal series of spots, the latter the smaller. Hind wing: interspaces 1b, 1a, and 1 with streaks from base, double in the latter two, cell with a forked broad streak, the lower branch with a hook, or spur-like slender loop, at base of 4 and 5 a broad elongate streak, and at base of 6 a quadrate spot; beyond these again a number of scattered unequal subterminal and terminal spots. Underside: basal two-thirds of fore wing dusky black, the apex and hind wing olive-brown; the spots and streaks much as on the upperside, Antennae, head and thorax black, the latter two spotted and streaked with, white; abdomen dusky above, ochraceous spotted with white beneath. Male secondary sex-mark in form 1.[1]
Expanse: 98-106 mm
[edit] Life cycle
[edit] Food-plants
The butterfly larva generally feed on plants of Family Asclepiadaceae. The recorded host plants are :-
- Asclepias
- Calotropis
- Heterostemma
- Marsdenia
- Dregea volubilis
- Heterostemma cuspidatum
- Hoya viridiflora
- Marsdenia tenacissima
- Crotalaria spp.
- Epibaterium spp.
- Soya [1]
 Egg |
 Caterpillar |
 Pupa |
[edit] Larva
Yellowish white; 3rd and 12th segments, each with a pair of fleshy filaments, black and greenish white; each of the segments with four transverse black bars, the second bar on all broader than the others, bifurcated laterally, a yellow longitudinal line on each side; head, feet and claspers spotted with black.[1]
[edit] Pupa
"Green with golden scattered spots and beaded dorsal crescent" (Frederic Moore quoted in Bingham)
[edit] Range
South Asia and Southeast Asia.
[edit] Habit
This species migrates extensively during the Monsoons in southern India. The migratory populations have been observed to be nearly entirely consisting of males.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Bingham, C. T. (1905) Fauna of British India. Butterflies Vol. 1
- ^ Kunte, K. 2005. Species composition, sex-ratios and movement patterns in Danaine butterfly migrations in southern India. Journ. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 102(3):280-286
