Amathusia phidippus
Encyclopedia
The Palmking is a butterfly
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

 found in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

. It belongs to the Morphinae
Morphinae
Morphinae is a subfamily of Nymphalidae butterflies that includes the morphos, the owl butterflies and related lineages. It is either considered a sister group of the Satyrinae, or disassembled and included therein.- Systematics :...

, a subfamily of the Brush-footed butterflies
Nymphalidae
The Nymphalidae is a family of about 5,000 species of butterflies which are distributed throughout most of the world. These are usually medium sized to large butterflies. Most species have a reduced pair of forelegs and many hold their colourful wings flat when resting. They are also called...

.

Description

See glossary
Glossary of Lepidopteran terms
This glossary describes the terms used in the formal descriptions of insect species, jargon used mostly by professionals or entomologist....

 for terms used


Male: upperside umber-brown. Fore wing with the costal margin narrowly fulvous near apex, crossing towards the termen, forming an obscure preapical band joining a subterminal lunular band of the same colour. Hind wing uniform, with a subterminal band as in the fore wing but not lunular, straight. Underside pale brown, with the following transverse pale lilac-white bands crossing both fore and hind wing: basal, subbasal, discal, postdiscal, broad subterminal and terminal; the subbasal and discal of equal width, meeting above the tornal angle in V-shape, the space between the two bands with, on the fore wing, two shorter similar bands crossing the cell, on the hind wing a single similar band from costa to median vein ; subterminal band on hind wing bent upwards above tornal area and continued halfway up the dorsal margin, the broadly-produced torn us with a dark brown spot; finally a large ochraceous ocellus in interspace 2, and a smaller similar one in interspace 6. Antennae reddish; head, thorax and abdomen umber-brown. Secondary sex-mark a glandular fold in membrane of wing shaded by tufts of long hair along vein 1 on upperside of hind wing, and preapically on the abdomen with tufts of stiff long hairs.

Female: Upper and under sides as in the male but paler; on the upperside the fulvous along the costal margin widens into a preapical patch, and generally the bands on the underside show through and appear above as pale fulvous bands.

Wingspan: 112–122 mm.

Distribution

This butterfly is widely distributed across parts of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....

, Indo China, Peninsular Malaysia
Peninsular Malaysia
Peninsular Malaysia , also known as West Malaysia , is the part of Malaysia which lies on the Malay Peninsula. Its area is . It shares a land border with Thailand in the north. To the south is the island of Singapore. Across the Strait of Malacca to the west lies the island of Sumatra...

 and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

. It occurs in the Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n archipelago (Sundaland, Sulawesi. King island. Java, ?Bali, Sumatra. Nias. Bawean. Lombok. Natuna. Borneo. Palawan. Sulawesi and Banggai) and the Philippines (Bongao, Sanga Sanga, Tawitawi, Sibutu, Balabac, Negros, Mapun islands).

The Palmking had been reported from Travancore (Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

) in 1891 by Ferguson and has recently been rediscovered there by C. Susanth and his team. Evans also reported the Palmking to occur in "Bassein" today Vasai-Virar
Vasai-Virar
Vasai-Virar is a city in Maharashtra state in western India. As per 2011 census this is the 5th largest city in Maharashtra . It is located in Thane District, 50 km north of Mumbai. The city is located on the north bank of Vasai Creek, part of the estuary of the Ulhas River...

, (Thane district
Thane District
Thane is a district in northern Maharashtra state in western India. As of 2011 it is the most populated district in the nation. The headquarters of the district is the city of Thane. Other major cities in the district are Navi Mumbai , Kalyan-Dombivli, Mira-Bhayander, Bhiwandi, Ulhasnagar,...

, Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

) but there have been no recent confirmed sightings there.

Ecology

According to Horsfield (quoted in Bingham), the caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...

s feed on coconut
Coconut
The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...

 leaves. They are cylindrical, light brown above; fifth to anal segment with rows of short fine hairs, anterior segments and head with longer, anteriorly projecting hairs; the head with a pair of lateral palmated processes, anal segment with two backward-projecting setose processes. Colour light pinkish brown above, ochraceous beneath, dark brown lateral and dorsal lines, a black transverse band on third and fourth segments. (Frederic Moore
Frederic Moore
Frederic Moore FZS was a British entomologist. It has been said that Moore was born at 33 Bruton Street but may be incorrect given that this was the address of the menagerie and office of the Zoological Society of London from 1826 to 1836.Moore was appointed an assistant in the East India Company...

 cited in Bingham).

The pupa
Pupa
A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The pupal stage is found only in holometabolous insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, going through four life stages; embryo, larva, pupa and imago...

 is green; head bifid, elongate boat-shaped (Moore cited in Bingham).

At least on Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

 but probably elsewhere too, adults like many Morphinae do not generally visit carrion
Carrion
Carrion refers to the carcass of a dead animal. Carrion is an important food source for large carnivores and omnivores in most ecosystems. Examples of carrion-eaters include vultures, hawks, eagles, hyenas, Virginia Opossum, Tasmanian Devils, coyotes, Komodo dragons, and burying beetles...

or old fruit to drink liquids.
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