Mycalesis mineus

Mycalesis mineus
Dark-branded Bushbrown
Wet-season form
Conservation status
Not evaluated (IUCN 2.3)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Nymphalidae
Genus: Mycalesis
Species: M. mineus
Binomial name
Mycalesis mineus
(Linnaeus, 1758)

The Dark-branded Bushbrown, Mycalesis mineus, is a species of satyrine butterfly found in Asia.

Description

Wet-season form in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Wet-season form.— Upperside dark vandyke-brown; fore and hind wings with slender subterminai and terminal pale lines. Fore wing with a single white-centred, fulvous-ringed, black ocellus, generally set in a square pale area, in interspace 2, occasionally a similar smaller ocellus without any pale surrounding area in interspace 5. Hind wing uniform sometimes with one or two obscure postmedian ocelli. Underside: ground-colour similar; fore and hind wings crossed by a transverse dusky-white discal band, well-defined inwardly, diffuse outwardly, followed by a post-discal series of ocelli surrounded by a dusky-yellowish, sometimes purplish-white, line; the ocelli are similar to the ocelli on the upperside, and vary from two to four on the fore and from five to seven (the preapical two being sometimes obsolescent) on the hind wing; of these latter the posterior four, not three as in Mycalesis perseus, are in a straight line; finally, beyond the rows of ocelli on both wings there are pale or purplish-white subterminal and terminal sinuous lines.

Dry-season form sipping at pealed Banana trunk at Narendrapur near Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Dry-season form. Upperside similar to that in the wet-season form, but paler. Underside from ochraceous brown to dusky brown of a darker shade ; basal half of the wings conspicuously darker than the outer portions ; the whole surface irrorated with fine brown striae ; sometimes a distinct dark discal band crosses both wings; ocelli nearly obsolete, indicated by minute white specks, the posterior four on the hind wing in a straight line as in the wet-season form. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen brown; the club of the antennae with black and ochraceous marks. Male sex-mark in form 1 as in M. perseus, but the patch of specialized scales on the underside of the fore wing half as large again.[1]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Bingham (1905)

References

  • Bingham, C.T. (1905): The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Lepidoptera, Volume 1


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