Tirumala limniace

:"Blue Tiger redirects here. For the big cat, see Maltese Tiger."

Taxobox
name = Blue Tiger

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image_width = 200px
image_caption = "Blue Tiger"', "Tirumala limniace"
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
ordo = Lepidoptera
superfamilia = Papilionoidea
familia = Nymphalidae
subfamilia = Danainae
genus = "Tirumala"
species = "T. limniace"
binomial = "Tirumala limniace"
binomial_authority = Cramer, 1775

The Blue Tiger ("Tirumala limniace") is a butterfly found in India that belongs to the Crows and Tigers, that is, the Danaid group of the Brush-footed butterflies family. This butterfly shows gregarious migratory behaviour in southern India.

Description

Upperside black, with bluish-white semihyaline spots and streaks. Fore wing: interspace 1 two streaks, sometimes coalescent, with a spot beyond cell: a streak from base and an outwardly indented spot at its apex; a large oval spot at base of interspace 2, another at base of interspace 3, with a smaller spot beyond it towards termen; five obliquely placed preapical streaks, and somewhat irregular subterminal and terminal series of spots, the latter the smaller. Hind wing: interspaces 1b, 1a, and 1 with streaks from base, double in the latter two, cell with a forked broad streak, the lower branch with a hook, or spur-like slender loop, at base of 4 and 5 a broad elongate streak, and at base of 6 a quadrate spot; beyond these again a number of scattered unequal subterminal and terminal spots.

Underside: basal two-thirds of fore wing dusky black, the apex and hind wing olive-brown; the spots and streaks much as on the upperside, Antennae, head and thorax black, the latter two spotted and streaked with, white; abdomen dusky above, ochraceous spotted with white beneath. Male secondary sex-mark in form 1.Bingham, C. T. (1905) Fauna of British India. Butterflies Vol. 1]

Expanse: 98-106 mm

Life cycle

Food-plants

The butterfly larva generally feed on plants of Family Asclepiadaceae. The recorded host plants are :-
* "Asclepias"
* "Calotropis"
* "Heterostemma"
* "Marsdenia"
* "Dregea volubilis"
* "Heterostemma cuspidatum"
* "Hoya viridiflora"
* "Marsdenia tenacissima"
* "Crotalaria" spp.
* "Epibaterium" spp.
* Soya

Larva

Yellowish white; 3rd and 12th segments, each with a pair of fleshy filaments, black and greenish white; each of the segments with four transverse black bars, the second bar on all broader than the others, bifurcated laterally, a yellow longitudinal line on each side; head, feet and claspers spotted with black.

Pupa

"Green with golden scattered spots and beaded dorsal crescent" (Frederic Moore quoted in Bingham)

Range

South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Habit

This species migrates extensively during the Monsoons in southern India. The migratory populations have been observed to be nearly entirely consisting of males. [Kunte, K. 2005. Species composition, sex-ratios and movement patterns in Danaine butterfly migrations in southern India. Journ. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 102(3):280-286]

References

Gallery

ee also

*Danainae
*Nymphalidae
*List of butterflies of India
*List of butterflies of India (Nymphalidae)