Polyura schreiberi

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Blue Nawab

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Superfamily:	Papilionoidea
Family:	Nymphalidae
Subfamily:	Charaxinae
Genus:	Polyura
Species:	P. schreiberi

Binomial name

Polyura schreiberi
(Godart, 1819)

The Blue Nawab (Polyura schreiberi) is a butterfly found in India that belongs to the Rajahs and Nawabs group, that is, the Charaxinae group of the Brush-footed butterflies family.

1 Description
2 Range
3 Life history
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Description

Male Upperside black, glossed slightly with dull indigo-blue, or, in some specimens, light green at the base of the wings. Fore and hind wings with a broad white cliscal bar from interspace 4 in fore wing to just below the apex of* the median vein in the hind wing, narrowing on the latter wing to a point. This bar has, on the outer side on both fore and hind wings, an irregular border of smalt-blue, which is narrowest anteriorly and broadens posteriorly respectively on both fore and hind wings. Fore wing with, in addition, a white rectangular spot in interspace 5 and a small whitish speck above it. Hind wing with a subterminal row oH small white dots, a terminal row of deep ochraceous spots, and some smalt-blue markings on the tails and margins near the tornal angle. Underside pearly white, broadly brownish pink along the dorsal margin of hind wing. Fore wing: two black spots at base of cell; a broad olive-green band edged on both sides with black, followed by a discal bluish-white bancl, as on the upperside, and continuation of that on the fore wing, terminating on vein 1, followed by a broad discal, posteriorly narrowing, white bar as on the upperside. Beyond this a postdiscal series of deep Indian-red lunules, placed on an olive-green ground, and margined on the inner side by an interrupted broad black line ; finally, a sub-terminal narrow green band and terminal ochraceous lunules. Tails black touched with smalt-blue; above tornal angle a black line from vein 1 to dorsum. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen black ; thorax and abdomen on the sides and beneath whitish.^[1]

Female. Differs very slightly from the male; but can be distinguished at once by the greater width of the transverse discal band, and also by the two spots above it being larger and joined on to the band.

Expanse: 92-116 mm.

[edit] Range

South India; Assam; Burma; Tenasserim to Java in the Malayan Subregion.

The above description is of the South Indian form (E. s. wardi). The Assam form (E. s. assamensis, Rothsch. & Jord.) typically wants the spots in interspaces (5 and 7 of the fore wing, but a specimen from Shillong in the British Museum has these spots, only they are placed prominently in echelon with one another as in the form from the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra. Burmese and Tenasserim specimens resemble the Assam form.

[edit] Life history

Larva green, with a yellow band on 7th segment. Head with four curved and tuborculated processes. Pupa green, with a longitudinal row of red dots on each side.