Danaus genutia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Common Tiger Danaus genutia
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Danaus genutia Cramer, 1779 |
The Common Tiger (Danaus genutia) is a butterfly found in India that belongs to the "Crows and Tigers", that is, the danaine group of the Brush-footed butterflies family (Evans 1932). It has some 16 subspecies; its evolutionary relationships are not completely resolved, but it appears to be closest to the Malay Tiger and White Tiger (Smith et al. 2005).
Contents |
[edit] Description
It resembles the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) of the Americas. The caterpillar of the Common Tiger butterfly obtains a supply of poison by eating poisonous plants, which makes the caterpillar and butterfly a distasteful morsel for predators. A study in Northeastern India showed a preference to foraging on Crotalaria juncea compared to Nerium oleander, Barleria cristata rosea and Bauhinia perpurea (Bhuyan et al. 2005).
[edit] Life history
 Egg |
 Caterpillar |
 Pupa |
 Adult |
[edit] References
- Bhuyan, M.; Deka, M.; Kataki, D. & Bhattacharyya, P. R. (2005): Nectar host plant selection and floral probing by the Indian butterfly Danaus genutia (Nymphalidae). Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera 38: 79-84. PDF fulltext
- Evans, W. H. (1932): The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd edition). Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.
- Smith, David A. S.; Lushai, Gugs & Allen, John A. (2005): A classification of Danaus butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) based upon data from morphology and DNA. Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 144(2): 191–212. DOI:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2005.00169.x (HTML abstract)
[edit] See also
