Danaus melanippus

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 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).

See also

• Danainae
• Nymphalidae
• List of butterflies of India
• List of butterflies of India (Nymphalidae)

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)

• Wynter-Blyth, M. A. (1957): Butterflies of the Indian Region. Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.