Tamil Yeoman

Tamil Yeoman

Cirrochroa thais thais ( Fabricius) NYMPHALIDAE

Adult

Upperside bright reddish yellow with green base. FW with black apical and terminal margins and a prominent medical transverse black line. HW with a large quadrate white sot on the anterior margin, a medical transverse black lunular line, a discal row of 6 small black spots, 2 submarginal lunular lines and a third outer line. Underside pale olive brown in male, orange brown in female with a transverse medical purple white glossy band on both wings. Black spots on the HW smaller and lunular lines indistinct. Wingspan 62-75mm.

Common butterfly in the evergreen forests and on the plateau. Endemic to south Indian hills, above 2500m in the Western Ghats, Fond of moist/damp patches deep inside the jungles. Abundant during February-may in south India. Both sexes visit flowers and male occasionally water.

Larva

Dark brown with violet tinge. Head yellow and bi-lobed. Body with a subdorsal, lateral and sub-spiracular white longitudinal lines and 6 rows of shiny black spines. Spines on the anal segment white.

Feeds on Hydnocarpus wightiana.

Distribution

Endemic to South India and Sri Lanka.