Lethe drypetis
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Lethe drypetis, the Tamil tree brown,[1][2] is a species of Satyrinae butterfly found in South India and Sri Lanka.[1][2]
Description
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Male: Upper-side very dark Vandyke brown; forewing uniform: hindwing with a postdiscal series of three or four blind black ocellar spots. Underside, brown; forewing below vein 2 and terminal margin paler, with a broad band across the cell, the wing medially and at apex suffused with lilac, bearing an incurved postdiscal series of five, blind black ocelli. Hindwing: sub basal and discal narrow transverse lilac bands, the former sinuous, the latter angulated on vein 4, and an arched postdiscal series of black fulvous-ringed ocelli, some with disintegrate centres; the wing medially suffused with lilac, the ocelli with lilacine lunules on both sides. Forewings and hindwings with slender lilacine subterminal and broader ochraceous terminal lines.[3]
Female: Similar to male, with ground colour paler; a broad oblique white discal bar and two white preapical spots on the upper-side of the forewing; a large, rectangular black subterminal mark in interspaces and a white spot above and below it, on the upper-side of the hindwing. Underside similar to the underside in the male, all the markings more prominent, the lilac, ochraceous and brown shades paler; the broad discal bar on forewing, as on the upper-side, joined by a nearly vertical lilacine white band bearing the series of ocelli.[3][4]
On the hindwing, a brown transverse discal band is very broadly produced between veins 4 and 5. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen brown; antennae ochraceous at apex.[3]
Wingspan 64–68mm.[3]
Found in southern India and Sri Lanka.[3]
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Female (left) and male (right) upper and underside pattern
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Male, Kerala, India
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Female, Sri Lanka
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Life history
Larva. "Fusiform; head conical, the vertex pointed and projected forward, anal segment pointed and projected hind ward. Colour pale green, with paler transverse lines on each segment; a lateral and a sublateral pale-bordered reddish stripe extending the whole length, including the anal segment. Feeds on bamboo." (After Frederic Moore)[3]
Pupa. "Suspended by the tail, broad and truncated anteriorly, abdominal segments dorsally convex, head and vertex both pointed; colour pale green." (After Moore)[3]