Lethe drypetis
Encyclopedia
The Tamil Treebrown Lethe drypetis is a species of Satyrinae
Satyrinae
Satyrinae, the satyrines or satyrids, commonly known as the Browns, is a subfamily of the Nymphalidae . They were formerly considered a distinct family, Satyridae. This group contains nearly half of the known diversity of brush-footed butterflies...

 butterfly found in Asia.

Description

Male upperside very dark vandyke-brown; fore wing uniform: hind wing with a postdiscal series of three or four blind black ocellar spots. Underside, brown; fore wing below vein 2 and terminal margin paler, a broad band across the cell, the wing medially and at apex suffused with lilac, bearing an incurved postdiscal series of five, blind black ocelli. Hind wing : subbasal and discal narrow transverse lilac bands, the former sinuous, the latter angulated on vein 4, and an arched postdiscal series of black fulvous-ringed ocelli, some with disintegrate centres; the wing medially suffused with lilac, the ocelli with lilacine lunules on both sides. Fore and hind wings with slender lilacine subterminal and broader ochraceous terminal lines.

Female similar, groundcolour paler; a broad oblique white discal bar and two white preapical spots on the upperside of the fore wing; a large, rectangular, black subterminal mark in interspaces and a white spot above and below it, on the upperside of the hind wing. Underside similar to the underside in the male, all the markings more prominent, the lilac, ochraceous and brown shades paler; the broad discal bar on fore wing, as on the upperside, joined by a nearly vertical lilacine white band bearing the series of ocelli.

On the hind wing the brown transverse discal band very broadly produced between veins 4 and 5. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen brown ; antennae ochraceous at apex.

Wing expanse 64–68 mm.

Found in Southern India and Sri Lanka.

Life history

Larva. "Fusiform; head conical, the vertex pointed and projected forward, anal segment pointed and projected hind ward. Colour pale green, with paler transverse lines on each segment; a lateral and a sublateral pale-bordered reddish stripe extending the whole length including the anal segment. Feeds on bamboo." (After 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...

)

Pupa. "Suspended by the tail, broad and truncated anteriorly, abdominal segments dorsally convex, head and vertex both pointed; colour pale green." (After Moore)
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