Tagiades gana

Immaculate/Large/Suffused Snow Flat
Western Ghats specimen
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Hesperiidae
Genus:	Tagiades
Species:	T. gana
Binomial name
Tagiades gana (Moore, 1865)

Tagiades gana, commonly known as the Immaculate/Large/Suffused Snow Flat, is a butterfly belonging to the family Hesperiidae.

Description

See glossary for terms used.

Watson (1891) gives a detailed description as follows :-^[1] Male and female have a dark brown ground colour. The male has on the upperside of the forewing, three minute semi-transparent spots obliquely before the apex ; a transverse discal series of streaks, a small patch within the cell, one near the base of the wing, and exterior margin blackish ; hindwing with the lower third pure white which is straightly separated from the brown of the basal portion ; apical margin and three spots on the upper part of the disc, black, and two spots on the middle of the white anterior margin. Underside paler brown, semi-transparent spots on forewing as above : hindwing white suffused with brown along the anterior margin : upper discal and marginal spots as above black. Female paler. Upperside somewhat greyish-brown ; forewing with spots and blackish discal streaks, and hindwing with upper discal spots as in male : exterior margin of hindwing greyish-white. Underside as in male. Cilia of both sexes pure white on the lower portion of the hindwing, the rest brown.

Dioscorea alata is a host plant for the larvae.^[2]

• 

  Larva on Dioscorea alata

• 

  Larva on Dioscorea alata

• 

  Pupa

• 

  On flower

• 

  Basking

• 

  Underside

• 

  Museum specimens from Malaya

Tagiades Gana, Large-Snow-Flat, Suffused www.indianwildlifephotographer.com

Cited references

1. Watson, E. Y. (1891).
2. Kalesh, S & S K Prakash (2007). "Additions of the larval host plants of butterflies of the Western Ghats, Kerala, Southern India (Rhopalocera, Lepidoptera): Part 1". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 104 (2): 235–238.

References

Print

• Evans, W.H. (1932) The Identification of Indian Butterflies. 2nd Ed, (i to x, pp454, Plates I to XXXII), Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.
• Kunte, Krushnamegh. (2000) Butterflies of Peninsular India, (i to xviii, pp254, Plates 1 to 32) Universities Press (India) Ltd, Hyderabad (reprint 2006). ISBN 81-7371-354-5.
• Watson, E. Y. (1891) Hesperiidae indicae: being a reprint of descriptions of the Hesperiidae of India, Burma, and Ceylon.. Vest and Co. Madras.
• Wynter-Blyth, M.A. (1957) Butterflies of the Indian Region, Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.

Online

• Beccaloni, G. W., Scoble, M. J., Robinson, G. S. & Pitkin, B. (Editors). 2003. The Global Lepidoptera Names Index (LepIndex). World Wide Web electronic publication. (accessed 22 September 2007).
• Brower, Andrew V. Z. and Warren, Andrew, (2007). Coeliadinae Evans 1937. Version 21 February 2007 (temporary). http://tolweb.org/Coeliadinae/12150/2007.02.21 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/
• Savela, Marrku Website on Lepidoptera (accessed 22 September 2007)