''Mycalesis perseus'', the dingy bushbrown
[ or common bushbrown,][ is a species of satyrine ]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 ...
found in south Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...
and southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
.
Description
Wet-season form. Male and female. Upperside dark to somewhat pale vandyke-brown. Fore wing with a white-centred, fulvous-ringed, black ocellus in interspace 2, and rarely a very small but similar ocellus in interspace 5. Hind wing uniform, occasionally two or three postmedian obscure ocelli present. Fore and hind wings with subterminal and terminal pale lines. Underside: the groundcolour, subterminal and terminal lines on the wings as on upper-side, but crossed by a common purplish - white narrow discal fascia. Fore wing with from two to four, hind wing normally with seven ocelli, similar to, but more clearly defined than, the ocelli on the upperside ; on both wings the line of ocelli bordered inwardly and outwardly by sinuous purplish-white lines. On the hind wing only the three posterior ocelli in a straight line, the rest strongly curved outwards. In the female the median or posterior ocellus on the upperside of the fore wing is always larger than in the male.[
Dry-season form.- Male and female. Upperside similar to that in the wet-season form, the median ocellus generally smaller. Underside brown, more or less suffused with purple and irrorated with darker brown minute transverse strigae; the transverse discal band obscure, often merely indicated by black dots at the veins, occasionally bordered outwardly by an ochraceous diffuse band. Ocelli obsolescent, but when present as mere minute dots their arrangement on the hind wing is as in the wet-season form. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen brown; antennae sometimes cinereous white on the sides with the apex black. Male sex-marks in form 2, but that on the underside of the fore wing small (about 2 into, long) and black.][
Expanse 42–54 mm.]
Gallery
File:Mycalesis 4 by Kadavoor.jpg, Wet-season form, Kerala
File:Mycalesis 2 by Kadavoor-2.jpg, Dry-season form, Kerala
File:Mantis eating a Common Bushbrown (Mycalesis perseus) butterfly.jpg, Mantis
Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They ha ...
eating a common bushbrown
File:Common Bushbrown (Mycalesis perseus)- dry season form W IMG 4190.jpg, Dry-season form at Narendrapur
Narendrapur is a neighbourhood in the Rajpur Sonarpur of the South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA).
Geography
Area overview
Bar ...
near Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
, West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
, India
File:Common Bushbrown PRA02.jpg, From above
Common bush brown (Mycalesis perseus cepheus) underside Phuket.jpg, ''M. p. cepheus'', Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
File:Himalayan common bushbrown (Mycalesis perseus blasius) male dry season form underside Chitwan.jpg, Himalayan common bushbrown (''M. p. blasius'') dry season form
Footnotes
References
*
External links
FLMNH
Excellent photographs of male and female from 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 ...
(authority determined). Subspecies ''lallilisis'' Hewitson, 1864.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2916771
Mycalesis
Butterflies of Asia
Butterflies of Singapore
Butterflies of Indochina