| Melanitis leda | |
|---|---|
| Wet-season form | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Nymphalidae |
| Genus: | Melanitis |
| Species: | M. leda |
| Binomial name | |
| Melanitis leda (Linnaeus, 1758) |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Melanitis ismene |
|
Melanitis leda, the Common Evening Brown, is a common species of butterfly found flying at dusk. The flight of this species is erratic. They are found in Africa, South Asia and South-east Asia extending to parts of Australia.
Wet-season form: Fore wing: apex subacute; termen slightly angulated just below apex, or straight. Upperside brown. Fore wing with two large subapical black spots, each with a smaller spot outwardly of pure white inwardly bordered by a ferruginous interrupted lunule; costal margin narrowly pale. Hind wing with a dark, white-centred, fulvous-ringed ocellus subterminally in interspace 2, and the apical ocellus, sometimes also others of the ocelli,on the underside, showing through.
Underside paler, densely covered with transverse dark brown striae ; a discal curved dark brown narrow band on fore wing; a post-discal similar oblique band, followed by a series of ocelli: four on the fore wing, that in interspace 8 the largest; six on the hind wing, the apical and subtornal the largest.[1]
Dry-season form: Fore wing : apex obtuse and more or less falcate; termen posterior to falcation straight or sinuous. Upperside: ground-colour similar to that in the wet-season form, the markings, especially the ferruginous lunules inwardly bordering the black sub-apical spots on fore wing, larger, more extended below and above the black costa. Hind wing : the ocellus in interspace 2 absent, posteriorly replaced by three or four minute white subterminal spots.
Underside varies in colour greatly. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen in both seasonal forms brown or greyish brown: the antennae annulated with white, ochraceous at apex.[1]
Colonel C. T. Bingham wrote of the genus in 1878:
The Melanitis was there among dead leaves, its wings folded and looking for all the world a dead, dry leaf itself. With regard to Melanitis, I have not seen it recorded anywhere that the species of this genus when disturbed fly a little way, drop suddenly into the undergrowth with closed wings, and invariably lie a little askew and slanting, which still more increases their likeness to a dead leaf casually fallen to the ground.
Resident butterflies are known to fight off visitors to the area during dusk hours.[2] This chase behaviour is elicited even by pebbles thrown nearby.[3]
The caterpillars feed on a wide variety of grasses including rice (Oryza sativa), bamboos, Andropogon, Rotboellia cochinchinensis,[4] Brachiaria mutica,[4] Cynodon, Imperata, and millets such as Oplismenus compositus,[5] Panicum and Eleusine indica.[6]
Adults feed mainly on nectar, and in rare cases visit rotting fruits.[7]
| External identifiers for Melanitis leda | |
|---|---|
| EOL | 140106 |
| NCBI | 127353 |