Nacaduba berenice

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The Rounded six-line Blue Nacaduba berenice is a species of lycaenid butterfly found in Southeast Asia.

[edit] Description

Race plumbeomicans: Male upperside: dull purplish-blue, in certain lights with a shining plumbeous frosting. Fore and hind wings: black anticiliary lines and on the hind wing the black subterminal spot in interspace 2 on the underside apparent by transparency. Underside: purplish grey. Fore wing: a pair of curved white lines from costa transversely across the cell to vein 1, a short similar line on the inner side of the discocellulars followed by three transverse discal similar lines from costa to vein 1, an inner and outer transverse Hubterminal series of slender white lunules and an anticiliary dark brown line. Hind wing: crossed transversely by three slender broken lines, with a short line on the inner side of the discocellulars between the outer two; These are followed by a discal and a postdiscal less broken and interruped similar lines, a double series of slender white lunules and a dark anticiliary line as on the fore wing. Cilia of both fore and hind wings dark brown. Antenna black, the shafts obscurely speckled with white; head, thorax and abdomen brown, thorax and abdomen slightly purplish; beneath: palpi white fringed with long black stiff hairs, thorax and abdomen purplish grey.

Female upperside: fuscous brown, the veins prominent; an elongate oval medial patch extended from base outwards on fore wing for about two-thirds of its length, dull brownish-white brilliantly iridescent with metallic blue in certain lights. Hind wing: a postdiscal transverse series of slender detached white lunules, followed by a similar subterminal series of continuous lunules that encloses between it and a slender terminal white line a transverse series of black spots; these spots decrease in size anteriorly; lastly a conspicuous anticiliary black line. Underside: pale ochraceous-bnown; markings much as in the male, but of the transverse white lines that cross the disc of the fore wing the outer one is shorter, not extended below vein 3. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen as in the male, but the head, thorax and abdomen paler with no purple gloss. ^[1]

Race nicobarica, Wood-Mason & de Niceville. Male upperside: groundcolour darker, plumbeous effulgence more striking. Underside: very dark purplish-brown; markings in form and arrangement much as in the female of the typical form, but the transverse bands formed by the white lines much broader; on the hind wing the black subterminal spots in interspaces 1 and 2 much larger, conspicuously crowned inwardly and surrounded with ochraceous orange and with an outer bordering of metallic green scales ; the anticiliary black line edged inwardly over the tornal area with white. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen as in the typical form. Female closely resembles the typical form, but differs as follows :— Upperside: fuscous black, the ground-colour much darker than in the typical form; tbe pale medial patch on the fore wing shot in certain lights with iridescent blue, much larger, occupying the basal posterior two-thirds of the wing, and unlike the typical form the posterior two-thirds of the hind wing. Underside: precisely as in the typical form. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen also similar to those of the typical form.^[1] (Great Nicobar and Central Group, Nicobar Islands.)