Melanitis leda

The Common Evening Brown (Melanitis leda) is a common species of butterfly found flying at dusk. The flight of this species is erratic. They are found in South Asia and South-east Asia extending to parts of Australia.

Description

See glossary for terms used

Wet-season form: Fore wing: apex subacute; termen slightly angulated just below apex, or straight. Upperside brown. Fore wing with two large subapical black spots, each with a smaller spot outwardly of pure white inwardly bordered by a ferruginous interrupted lunule; costal margin narrowly pale. Hind wing with a dark, white-centred, fulvous-ringed ocellus subterminally in interspace 2, and the apical ocellus, sometimes also others of the ocelli,on the underside, showing through.

Underside paler, densely covered with transverse dark brown striae ; a discal curved dark brown narrow band on fore wing; a post-discal similar oblique band, followed by a series of ocelli: four on the fore wing, that in interspace 8 the largest; six on the hind wing, the apical and subtornal the largest.

Upperside- Dry season form in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Dry-season form: Fore wing : apex obtuse and more or less falcate; termen posterior to falcation straight or sinuous. Upperside: ground-colour similar to that in the wet-season form, the markings, especially the ferruginous lunules inwardly bordering the black sub-apical spots on fore wing, larger, more extended below and above the black costa. Hind wing : the ocellus in interspace 2 absent, posteriorly replaced by three or four minute white subterminal spots.

Underside varies in colour greatly. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen in both seasonal forms brown or greyish brown: the antennae annulated with white, ochraceous at apex.

Ecology

The Melanitis was there among dead leaves, its wings folded and looking for all the world a dead, dry leaf itself. With regard to Melanitis, I have not seen it recorded anywhere that the species of this genus when disturbed fly a little way, drop suddenly into the undergrowth with closed wings, and invariably lie a little askew and slanting, which still more increases their likeness to a dead leaf casually fallen to the ground.

Resident butterflies are known to fight off visitors to the area during dusk hours. This chase behaviour is elicited even by pebbles thrown nearby.

The caterpillars feed on a wide variety of grasses including rice (Oryza sativa), bamboos, Andropogon, Cynodon, Imperata, and millets such as Oplismenus compositus, Panicum and Eleusine indica.

Adults feed mainly on nectar, they rarely visit onld fruits to drink their juices.

Gallery

Footnotes

References

• (1905): Fauna of British India, etc. Lepidoptera, Volume 1
• (2006): Diversity and ecology of carrion- and fruit-feeding butterflies in Bornean rain forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 22: 25–33. (HTML abstract)
• (2002): Visual mate searching behaviour in the evening brown butterfly, Melanitis leda (L.) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Australian Journal of Entomology 41(4): 300–305. PDF fulltext
• (2003): Twilight fighting in the evening brown butterfly, Melanitis leda (L.) (Nymphalidae): residency and age effects. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 54(1): 7–13. (HTML abstract)
• (2006): Additions to known larval host plants of Indian butterflies. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 103(1): 119-120. PDF fulltext
• (2007): HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants. Accessed July 2007.