Pratapa icetoides

Pratapa icetoides, the blue royal,[1] is a species of blue butterfly (Lycaenidae) found in the Indomalayan realm.

Blue royal
P. i. calculis
P. i. yasa From the Courvoisier Collection, Basel, Switzerland
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Lepidoptera
Family:
Lycaenidae
Genus:
Pratapa
Species:
P. icetoides
Binomial name
Pratapa icetoides
(Elwes, 1892)

Range

The butterfly occurs in India from Assam, the Khasi Hills, eastwards and across to north and south Myanmar, Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Java, Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Nias.[2][3]

Subspecies
  • P. i. icetoides North India, Burma, North Thailand, Assam, Burma
  • P. i. cretheus (de Nicéville, 1895) Sumatra, W.Java
  • P. i. carmentalis (de Nicéville, [1893]) Khasia Hills
  • P. i. yasa (Fruhstorfer, 1912) Nias
  • P. i. ecphanathus (Fruhstorfer, 1912) East Java
  • P. i. calculis Druce, 1895 South Thailand, Peninsular Malaya, Singapore, Borneo
  • P. i. marikit Schröder & Treadaway, 1986 Philippines, Palawan

Taxonomy

The butterfly was previously classified as Camena icetoides and Ancema icetoides.[4]

Status

William Harry Evans in 1932[3] and Mark Alexander Wynter-Blyth in 1957 both describe the species as not being rare.[5]

Description
For a key to the terms used, see Glossary of entomology terms.

The butterfly has a wingspan of 30 to 32 mm.

The male white-banded royal above is a shining bright blue up to base of 4 in the forewing. On the hindwing is a mid-costal white patch. The male has a large but inconspicuous brand on the upperside of the hindwing. The female is a pale dull powdery blue with a broad black border on both wings. The underside is pale brown with no bars end cell. The forewing has an outwardly white-edged discal line curved inwards.[6]

gollark: There was that thing where some scientists put... flies, I think it was, in some environment where they couldn't have much of a population. They did not evolve to have fewer young or something. They evolved to cannibalize each other's young.
gollark: Evolution doesn't really select for the good of the species either, just the propagation of your genes.
gollark: Congratulations!
gollark: Modern high-core-count Intel CPUs will *happily* use hundreds of watts if the configuration allows it.
gollark: Daylight saving time: because if someone is unhappy with how their work hours line up with sunlight or something, the obvious solution is to meddle with the fabric of time itself and cause untold hundreds of issues in computer programs everywhere.

See also

Cited references
  1. Yutaka Inayoshi, A Check List of Butterflies in Indo-China, page on Pratapa icetoides.
  2. Markku Savela's website on Lepidoptera Page on genus Pratapa
  3. Evans, W.H. (1932). The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd ed.). Mumbai, India: Bombay Natural History Society. p. 281, ser no H59.8.
  4. Beccaloni, G.; Scoble, M.; Kitching, I.; Simonsen, T.; Robinson, G.; Pitkin, B.; Hine, A.; Lyal, C., eds. (2003). "Ancema icetoides". The Global Lepidoptera Names Index. Natural History Museum. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  5. Wynter-Blyth, Mark Alexander (1957). Butterflies of the Indian Region. Bombay, India: Bombay Natural History Society. p. 340. ISBN 978-8170192329.
  6. Haribal, Meena (1992). The Butterflies of Sikkim Himalaya and Their Natural History. Gangtok, Sikkim, India: Sikkim Nature Conservation Foundation. p. 106.

References


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.