Tanaecia lepidea

Grey Count
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Tanaecia
Species:	T. lepidea
Binomial name
Tanaecia lepidea (Butler, 1868)
Synonyms
Euthalia lepidea

The Grey Count (Tanaecia lepidea) is a species of nymphalid butterfly found in South and Southeast Asia.

Description

Upperside dark brown, paler in the female, with very obscure black markings of transverse lines across the cells of both fore and hind wings and an oblique discal fascia on the fore wing; an ash-grey continuous band along the termen of both fore and hind wings, gradually broadening from the apex of the fore, where it is very narrow, to the tornus of the hind wing, where it covers about one-third oil the wing. In the female this band is outwardly narrowly bordered with brown. Cilia white. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen dark brown above; beneath, the antennae ochraceous, the rest dusky white washed with ochraceous. Underside: Male ochraceous brown, female bright ochraeeous. In both sexes the colours paler on the hind wing; the fore wing somewhat narrowly, the hind wing much more broadly suffused with lilacine-grey on the terminal margins and along the dorsal margin of the hind wing; cells of both wings with dark brown sinuous transverse lines and looplike markings ; both fore and hind wings crossed by somewhat diffuse broad discal and narrower postdiscal dark bands, prominent on the fore, obscure on the hind wing. Male with a patch of specialized dark scales above vein 4 on the upperside of the hind wing.^[1]

Museum specimen from Malaya

Distribution

Found in the lower Himalayas eastwards from Almora. In the Western Ghats, central India, Orissa, Bengal and into Assam and the Malay Peninsula. Found in forested habitats.^[1]

Life history

Tanaecia lepidea caterpillar on Careya arborea

Larva. " Of the usual Euthalia form; colour green with a dorsal row of light red ocelli with blue centres ; spines tipped with yellow. (Davidson & Aitken.)

Pupa. "More narrowed at the head than E. garuda, green, all the points golden tipped with black, and a few large spots of gold between." (Davidson & Aitken)

Food-plants include Melastoma malabathricum, Planchonia careya.^[2]

Gallery

• 

  at Samsing in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India.

• 

  at Samsing in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India.

• 

  Basking on sunlit leaves

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tanaecia lepidea.

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