Tagiades gana

Immaculate/Large/Suffused Snow Flat
Western Ghats specimen
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Hesperiidae
Genus: Tagiades
Species: T. gana
Binomial name
Tagiades gana
(Moore, 1865)

Tagiades gana, commonly known as the Immaculate/Large/Suffused Snow Flat, is a butterfly belonging to the family Hesperiidae.

Description

See glossary for terms used.

Watson (1891) gives a detailed description as follows :-[1] Male and female have a dark brown ground colour. The male has on the upperside of the forewing, three minute semi-transparent spots obliquely before the apex ; a transverse discal series of streaks, a small patch within the cell, one near the base of the wing, and exterior margin blackish ; hindwing with the lower third pure white which is straightly separated from the brown of the basal portion ; apical margin and three spots on the upper part of the disc, black, and two spots on the middle of the white anterior margin. Underside paler brown, semi-transparent spots on forewing as above : hindwing white suffused with brown along the anterior margin : upper discal and marginal spots as above black. Female paler. Upperside somewhat greyish-brown ; forewing with spots and blackish discal streaks, and hindwing with upper discal spots as in male : exterior margin of hindwing greyish-white. Underside as in male. Cilia of both sexes pure white on the lower portion of the hindwing, the rest brown.

Dioscorea alata is a host plant for the larvae.[2]

Cited references

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tagiades gana.
  1. ↑ Watson, E. Y. (1891).
  2. ↑ Kalesh, S & S K Prakash (2007). "Additions ot the larval host plants of butterflies of the Western Ghats, Kerala, Southern India (Rhopalocera, Lepidoptera): Part 1". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 104 (2): 235–238.

References

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