''Delias melusina'' is a

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

in the family

Pieridae The Pieridae are a large family of butterflies with about 76 genera containing about 1,100 species, mostly from tropical Africa and tropical Asia with some varieties in the more northern regions of North America and Eurasia.DeVries P. J. in Levi ...

. It was described by

Otto Staudinger Otto Staudinger (2 May 1830 – 13 October 1900) was a German entomologist and a natural history dealer considered one of the largest in the world specialising in the collection and sale of insects to museums, scientific institutions, and indi ...

in 1890. It is found in the Australasian realm, where it is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

is about 78 mm. This species is similar to ''

Delias agostina ''Delias agostina'', the yellow Jezebel is a medium-sized butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites. See also *List of butterflies of India *List of butterflies of India (Pieridae) This is a list of the pierid butterfli ...

'', but is considerably darker and with wider dark borders on the underside of the hindwings. Females are remarkably similar in appearance to '' Delias kuehni'', but can be distinguished by the black dusting in the basal area.delias-butterflies
/ref>

References

External links

''Delias''
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms'' {{Taxonbar, from=Q2658103

melusina Mélusine () or Melusina is a figure of European folklore, a nixie (folklore), female spirit of fresh water in a holy well or river. She is usually depicted as a woman who is a Serpent (symbolism), serpent or fish from the waist down (much lik ...

Butterflies described in 1890