Индийский солнечный луч: описание бабочки Curetis thetis

Species of butterfly

Curetis thetis, the Indian sunbeam, is a species of lycaenid or red butterfly found in Indomalayan realm.

The butterfly occurs in Peninsular India, south of the Himalayas, but not in the desert tracts or in areas with a scanty rainfall; parts of Assam; Saurashtra; Bengal, Sylhet onto Myanmar. It is also found in the Nicobar Islands.

Upperside dark cupreous red, glossy and shining. Forewing: base irrorated with dusky scales; costa edged with a narrow, inwardly jagged, jet black band that broadens to the apex, thence continued along the termen, decreasing in width to the tornus; opposite the apex the inner edge of the black is acutely angulate. Hindwing: base and dorsum broadly but slightly irrorated (sprinkled) with dusky scales; costa narrowly, dorsal margin more broadly pale; termen very narrowly and evenly margined with black.

Upperside: ground colour similar but of a slightly paler shade in all the specimens I have seen. Forewing: costal and terminal margins edged more broadly with black than in thetis, the inner margin of this colour forms a regular strongly curved arch from base of wing to tornus, not angulate at all opposite apex of wing, the edging of the costal margin not jagged on the inner side. Hindwing: the costal margin not pale but somewhat broadly dusky black; the terminal black edging broader than in thetis, not linear, produced for a very short distance up each vein. The irroration of dusky scales at the bases of both forewings and hindwings and along the dorsal area of the hindwing heavier and more broadly diffused, especially on the latter. Underside: as in the typical form. Antenna, head, thorax and abdomen similar.

The larva has been recorded as feeding on Pongamia glabra, Derris scandens, Abrus precatorius (Leguminosae), Xylia dolabriformis and Heynia trijuga (Meliaceae).

On emergence eats a hole through the top of the egg about equalling one third of its surface and crawls out. The empty shell has a close superficial resemblance to an echinus shell. In colour pale ochreous, furnished with long stout white hairs of which a subdorsal series is on each side, with one long hair springing from the apex of each tubercle; there are, besides, other lateral series and numerous hairs projecting forwards in front of the head and backwards over the anal segment. The full grown larva is the most beautiful known to me among the Lycaenidae of the exact shade of green of the leaves on which it feeds The second segment is quite unmarked; the third to the thirteenth have a subdorsal series of short oblique pale yellowish green lines between which the ground colour is paler than the rest of the body; there is a dark green dorsal line; on each side of the ninth segment there is a prominent pure dead white, somewhat diamond shaped mark.|de Nicéville De Niceville goes on to say that the sheaths of the tentacles on the twelfth segment are pale green, the tentacles themselves maroon, the whorl of hairs at their apices white with their basal thirds black.

Light green; wing cases bluish green. "There is a conspicuous heart shaped pale ochreous mark on the top of the thorax, the pits on it filled in with reddish pigment." (de Nicéville.)