''Parantirrhoea'' is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

butterfly genus in the family Nymphalidae."''Parantirrhoea'' Wood-Mason, 1881"
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms'' Its only species, ''Parantirrhoea marshalli'', the Tranvancore evening brown, is endemic to the Western Ghats of India.

James Wood-Mason James Wood-Mason (December 1846 – 6 May 1893) was an English zoologist. He was the director of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, after John Anderson. He collected marine animals and lepidoptera, but is best known for his work on two other groups ...

described this species from the specimens in the collection of G F L Marshall which were collected by Harold S. Ferguson who was director of the State Museum at

Trivandrum Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

. Little was known about the species in the wild until a population was discovered in the Periyar Tiger Reserve in 1993. Sightings of both sexes of this butterfly are reported in the southern region of the Western Ghats in 2002 (Kunhikrishnan (2002)). In 2006, larvae were collected from an Etah jungle like habitat in Kallar-Ponmudi valley, a northerly extension of the Ashambu hills of southern Western Ghats. Caterpillars collected were reared in laboratory conditions. It is also known from Periyambadi in Kodagu.

Description

Males and females: Upperside, both wings dark fuscous suffused with rich deep violet. Forewing with an outwardly and forwardly arched subcrescentic pale violet or mauve band, commencing beyond the middle of the wing at the costal vein, terminating at the inner angle, and crossed obliquely by a series of three small white spots disposed in a straight line parallel to the outer margin, and placed upon folds of as many consecutive interspaces, the last being between the second and third median vein. Hindwing relatively longer tailed than in '' Melanitis ismene'' Cramer, with the membranous parts of the divergent tail almost wholly formed by the produced wing-membrane of the interspace between the second and third median vein, a very narrow anterior membranous edging being contributed by the interspace next in front; and with rather more than the basal two-thirds of its length in front of the discoidal vein and subcostal vein ochreous. Underside: both wings ochreous, obscurely striated with a deeper shade of the same colour, and marked with a submarginal series of inconspicuous brown specks, the probable rudiments of ocelli.

References

External links

Status report in India
Melanitini Butterflies of Asia Taxa named by James Wood-Mason {{Satyrinae-stub