Neopithecops zalmora

Quaker
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Lycaenidae
Genus: Neopithecops
Species: N. zalmora
Binomial name
Neopithecops zalmora
(Butler, [1870])

The Quaker (Neopithecops zalmora) is a small butterfly found in South Asia and Southeast Asia that belongs to the Lycaenids or Blues family.

Description

See glossary for terms used
mating pair
Wet-season form Narenderpur, near Kolkata, India

Wet-season form

Upperside of both sexes dark purplish brown; in the female slightly paler on the disc of the fore wing. In most specimens, but not in all, the male also has the disc of the fore wing similarly paler. Underside; white. Fore wing: apex dusky brown, apices of veins 10, 11 and 12 with a minute black dot; no discal markings, but the discocellulars picked out with a short, very slender, obscure brown line; a postdiscal, irregular, transverse series of slender brown lunules, followed by a transverse, very slender, sinuous brown line, the white ground-colour in the interspaces beyond centred by a subterminal series of transverse black spots.

Hind wing: discocellulars with a short brown line similar to that on the fore wing, followed by a subdorsal small round black spot, and a subcostal much larger similar spot; between these two spots is a curved, very irregular line of detached pale ashy-brown lunules; the subterminal markings very similar to those on the fore wing. Cilia of fore wing dusky brown, of hind wing white. Antenna, head, thorax and abdomen dark brown; the antenna on the inner side speckled with white; beneath; the palpi, thorax and abdomen white.

Dry-season form

Dry-season form at Narendrapur near Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
From Wayanad

Differs from specimens of the wet-season brood as follows:

Upperside: ground-colour not so dark generally. Fore wing: a large oval snow-white spot placed obliquely on the disc. Hind wing: apex and disc irregularly white; on the posterior half the ground-colour a shade darker than on the anterior half.

Underside: ground-colour and markings similar to those of specimens of the wet-season brood, but the markings very much paler and fainter; in specimens taken in the middle of the dry-season in exceptionally dry localities these markings are altogether absent. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen on the upperside paler than in the wet-season brood.[1]

Distribution

India: Eastern Himalayas; Bengal: Orissa; Western Ghats; Ceylon; Assam; Burma; Tenasserim; the Andamans; extending into the Malay Peninsula.

Food plants

Caterpillar

The larvae are known to feed on Diospyros (Ebenaceae) and many species of Glycosmis (Rutaceae) including G. arborea, G. parviflora and G. pentaphylla.[2]

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bingham, C. T. (1907) Fauna of British India. Butterflies. Vol 2.
  2. ↑ Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni and Luis M. Hernández HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Accessed November 2006

External links

Media related to Neopithecops zalmora at Wikimedia Commons

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