Danaus melanippus

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White Tiger

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Superfamily:	Papilionoidea
Family:	Nymphalidae
Subfamily:	Danainae
Tribe:	Danaini
Genus:	Danaus
Species:	D. melanippus

Binomial name

Danaus melanippus
Cramer, 1777

The White Tiger (Danaus melanippus) is a butterfly species found in tropical Asia which belongs to the "Crows and Tigers", that is, the danaine group of the Brush-footed butterflies family.

It ranges from Assam in eastern India^{[verification needed]} through Southeast Asia south to Indonesia, and eastwards to the Philippines and through southern China to Taiwan (Evans 1932, Smith et al. 2005). It has around 15 (13-18, according to author) subspecies, and its closest relative is the Malay Tiger, Danaus affinis (Smith et al. 2005).

[edit] References

Evans, W.H. (1932): The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd edition). Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.

Gaonkar, Harish (1996): Butterflies of the Western Ghats, India (including Sri Lanka) - A Biodiversity Assessment of a threatened mountain system. Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc, Bangalore, India & Natural History Museum, London, UK.

Gay, Thomas; Kehimkar, Isaac & Punetha, J. C.(1992): Common Butterflies of India. WWF-India and Oxford University Press, Mumbai, India.

Haribal, Meena (1994): The Butterflies of Sikkim Himalaya and their Natural History. Sikkim Nature Conservation Foundation, Gangtok, India.

Kunte, Krushnamegh (2005): India - A Lifescape: Butterflies of Peninsular India. Universities Press, Hyderabad, India. ISBN 81-7371-354-5

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)