Tajuria maculata

Tajuria maculata, the spotted royal,[1][2] is a species of lycaenid or blue butterfly found in Asia.[1][2][3][4][5]

Spotted royal
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Lycaenidae
Genus: Tajuria
Species:
T. maculata
Binomial name
Tajuria maculata
(Hewitson, 1865)
Synonyms
  • Iolaus maculatus
  • Tajuria maculatus

Distribution

Initially thought to be occurring in Sikkim to Peninsular Malaya, Borneo, Sumatra.[2] Though there was a single specimen record of T. maculata from south India with the de Nicéville collection, that Stokes Roberts took from the Nilgiris district, northwestern Tamil Nadu, southern Western Ghats (Yates 1935), it was confirmed only in 2011 by V.K. Sarkar et al.[6] This rare butterfly was sighted again in the Nilgiris nearly a century over.[7]

In May 2013, naturalists found eggs and caterpillars of this butterfly in Lakkidy, Wayanad, Keralam. They successfully recorded the complete lifecycle, the first time in India. [8][9]

Description

In 1865, William Chapman Hewitson described this butterfly as:

Upperside. Female. Anterior wing dark brown, with a large central spot of white from the base to beyond the middle, with its base and a spot at its middle lilac. Posterior wing with the costal margin, a submarginal band of spots, a spot above these, and the outer margin dark brown : a submarginal line of white and some lilac spots.

Underside white, with numerous black spots.

— William Chapman Hewitson[3]

Life history

The larvae feed on Dendrophthoe spp., Loranthus spp. and Viscum spp.[10]

See also

References
  1. "Tajuria Moore, [1881]" at Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms
  2. Varshney, R.; Smetacek, P. A Synoptic Catalogue of the Butterflies of India (2015 ed.). New Delhi: Butterfly Research Centre, Bhimtal and Indinov Publishing. p. 116.
  3. Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: W.C., Hewitson (1866). Illustrations of diurnal Lepidoptera, Lycænidæ. London: John Van Voorst. p. 228.
  4. Inayoshi, Yutaka. "Tajuria maculata (Hewitson,[1865])". Butterflies in Indo-China. Retrieved 2018-04-15.
  5. Public Domain One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Swinhoe, Charles (1911–1912). Lepidoptera Indica. Vol. IX. Vol. 9. London: Lovell Reeve and Co. pp. 124–126.
  6. Sarkar, V.K.; D.S., Das; V.C., Balakrishnan; Kunte, K. (26 March 2011). "Validation of the reported occurrence of Tajuria maculata, the Spotted Royal butterfly (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae), in the Western Ghats, southwestern India, on the basis of two new records". Journal of Threatened Taxa. 3 (3): 1629–1632. doi:10.11609/jott.o2645.1629-32. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  7. Premkumar, Rohan (13 March 2022). "Rare Spotted Royal recorded in the Nilgiris after more than a century". The Hindu.
  8. https://www.facebook.com/manoramaonline. "പൊട്ടുവെള്ളാംബരി ചിത്രശലഭത്തിന്റെ പൂർണ ജീവിതചക്രം രേഖപ്പെടുത്തി". ManoramaOnline (in Malayalam). Retrieved 2023-05-22. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help); External link in |last= (help)
  9. "Life cycle of rare Spotted Royal butterfly documented for the first time in India". The Hindu. 2023-05-22. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2023-05-23.
  10. Ravikanthachari Nitin; V.C. Balakrishnan; Paresh V. Churi; S. Kalesh; Satya Prakash; Krushnamegh Kunte (2018-04-10). "Larval host plants of the buterfies of the Western Ghats, India". Journal of Threatened Taxa. 10 (4): 11502. doi:10.11609/jott.3104.10.4.11495-11550.


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