Ixias marianne

Taxobox | name = White Orange Tip


image_caption = Female
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
ordo = Lepidoptera
familia = Pieridae
genus = "Ixias"
species = "I. marianne"
binomial = "Ixias marianne"
binomial_authority = Cramer 1779The White Orange Tip ("Ixias marianne") is a small butterfly of the Family Pieridae, (the Yellows and Whites) found in India and Sri Lanka.

Description

Wet-season brood. Male upperside is chalky-white with the apical half of fore and terminal margin of hind wing broadly black, the black on the latter broadest anteriorly. Fore wing: a broad rich orange patch obliquely across the black area extended to the upper apex of the cell, narrowed posteriorly and spread above the tornus into interspace 1 ; opposite the apex of the cell this orange patch is very broad and leaves only the apex of the wing and a comparatively narrow band along the termen and costa black ; base of the wing irrorated with black scales.

Underside : rich sulphur-yellow as in most of the forms of the genus, irrorated with fusco-ferruginous, short, transverse striations and minute dots. Fore wing : the orange patch of the upperside plainly seen by transparency on the disc ; a broadly triangular area below the cell white ; discocellular spot large and prominent, centred with white. Both fore and hind wings with the discal transverse series of reddish-brown spots, in other forms characteristic of the dry-season broods, present and more or less conspicuous, the spots always centred with white ; on the fore wing the patch above the tornus prominent and in some specimens very large. Antennae reddish brown, head and thorax anteriorly with reddish-brown hairs, thorax above with white hairs, abdomen black ; beneath : head, thorax and abdomen white. [Bingham, C. T. 1907. Fauna of British India. Butterflies. Vol. 2]

Female is similar with the upper fore wing having the orange patch on the black apical area narrower, posteriorly truncate, not extended below interspace 2 ; an outer transverse series of four black spots on the orange parch in interspaces 2 to 5. Underside as in the male , the markings slightly larger. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen similar.

Dry-season brood.In both sexes this differs less from the wet-season form than it does in "Ixias pyrene" and "Ixias verna". The characteristic dry-season markings on the underside are more pronounced, sometimes remarkably so.

Wing expanse of 54-56 mm.

Found from the NW Himalayas to Kumaon, Punjab, Bengal, central, western and southern India. Sri Lanka.�

Food plants

"Capparis grandis". [Kunte, K. 2006. Additions to known larval host plants of Indian butterflies. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 103(1):119-120]

Gallery

Notes

References

* Evans, W.H. (1932) The Identification of Indian Butterflies. (2nd Ed), Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India

ee also

*List of butterflies of India (Pieridae)