Arletta vardhana

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dusky Hedge Blue

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Superfamily:	Papilionoidea
Family:	Lycaenidae
Genus:	Arletta
Species:	A. vardhana

Binomial name

Arletta vardhana
(Moore, 1874)

Synonyms

Cyaniris vardhana
Lycaenopsis vardhana (Moore)

The Hampson's Hedge Blue (Arletta vardhana)^[1] is a small butterfly found in Sri Lanka^[2] that belongs to the Lycaenids or Blues family.

1 Description
2 Taxonomy
3 Range
4 Cited references
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Description

Male upperside fore wing: costa, apex and termen very broadly dusky black; at apex this colour occupies more than a third of the wing in some specimens, and in most is carried narrowly along the dorsal margin to the base; the remainder of the wing pale iridescent blue; the discocellulars marked by a jet-black, very prominent, short, posteriorly acute bar. Hind wing: costal margin broadly shaded with dusky black, the rest of the wing pale iridescent blue, the posterior veins black, very prominent. Underside : pearly-white, the bases of the wings slightly glossed with blue. Fore wing: a short broad line on the discocellulars, three upper discal spots placed obliquely beyond it, the anterior two mere minute dots and a postdiscal inwardly oblique series of three larger spots, all dark brown. Hind wing: uniform with a few minute dark brown spots, of which a basal spot in interspace 7 and another further outwards in the same interspace are the most conspicuous. Cilia of both fore and hind wings white. Antenna, head and thorax dark brown, the antennte as usual ringed with white; beneath: the palpi, thorax and abdomen white. Female very similar to the male, differs as follows:—Upperside, fore wing: the disc white, very faintly irrorated with iridescent^[3]

[edit] Taxonomy

The butterfly was earlier known as Lycaenopsis vardhana Moore^[2].

[edit] Range

It is found in Sri Lanka^[2].

[edit] Cited references

^ Card for species vardhana in LepIndex. Accessed 14 October 2006.
^ ^a ^b ^c Evans,W.H.(1932) The Identification of Indian Butterflies, ser no H21.13, pp 221-226
^ Bingham, C. T. 1907. Fauna of British India. Butterflies. Volume 2

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Beccaloni, G. W., Scoble, M. J., Robinson, G. S. & Pitkin, B. (Editors). 2003. The Global Lepidoptera Names Index (LepIndex). World Wide Web electronic publication. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/entomology/lepindex [accessed 14 October 2006].
Evans, W.H. (1932) The Identification of Indian Butterflies. (2nd Ed), Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India