The Palmking (Amathusia phidippus) is a butterfly found in India and Southeast Asia. It belongs to the Morphinae, a subfamily of the Brush-footed butterflies.

Description

See glossary for terms used

Male: upperside umber-brown. Fore wing with the costal margin narrowly fulvous near apex, crossing towards the termen, forming an obscure preapical band joining a subterminal lunular band of the same colour. Hind wing uniform, with a subterminal band as in the fore wing but not lunular, straight. Underside pale brown, with the following transverse pale lilac-white bands crossing both fore and hind wing: basal, subbasal, discal, postdiscal, broad subterminal and terminal; the subbasal and discal of equal width, meeting above the tornal angle in V-shape, the space between the two bands with, on the fore wing, two shorter similar bands crossing the cell, on the hind wing a single similar band from costa to median vein ; subterminal band on hind wing bent upwards above tornal area and continued halfway up the dorsal margin, the broadly-produced torn us with a dark brown spot; finally a large ochraceous ocellus in interspace 2, and a smaller similar one in interspace 6. Antennae reddish; head, thorax and abdomen umber-brown. Secondary sex-mark a glandular fold in membrane of wing shaded by tufts of long hair along vein 1 on upperside of hind wing, and preapically on the abdomen with tufts of stiff long hairs.^[1]

Female: Upper and under sides as in the male but paler; on the upperside the fulvous along the costal margin widens into a preapical patch, and generally the bands on the underside show through and appear above as pale fulvous bands.^[1]

Wingspan: 112–122 mm.

Distribution

This butterfly is widely distributed across parts of India, Myanmar, Indo China, Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand. It occurs in the Indonesian archipelago (Sundaland, Sulawesi. King island. Java, ?Bali, Sumatra. Nias. Bawean. Lombok. Natuna. Borneo. Palawan. Sulawesi and Banggai) and the Philippines (Bongao, Sanga Sanga, Tawitawi, Sibutu, Balabac, Negros, Mapun islands).^[2]

The Palmking had been reported from Travancore (Kerala) in 1891 by Ferguson^{[citation needed]} and has recently been rediscovered there by C. Susanth and his team.^[3] Evans also reported the Palmking to occur in "Bassein" today Vasai-Virar, (Thane district, Maharashtra)^[4] but there have been no recent confirmed sightings there.

Ecology

According to Horsfield (quoted in Bingham), the caterpillars feed on coconut leaves. They are cylindrical, light brown above; fifth to anal segment with rows of short fine hairs, anterior segments and head with longer, anteriorly projecting hairs; the head with a pair of lateral palmated processes, anal segment with two backward-projecting setose processes. Colour light pinkish brown above, ochraceous beneath, dark brown lateral and dorsal lines, a black transverse band on third and fourth segments. (Frederic Moore cited in Bingham).

The pupa is green; head bifid, elongate boat-shaped (Moore cited in Bingham).

At least on Borneo but probably elsewhere too, adults like many Morphinae do not generally visit carrion or old fruit to drink liquids.^[5]

Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b} Bingham (1905)
2. ^ Savela (2007)
3. ^ Susanth et al. (2007)
4. ^ Evans (1932)^{[verification needed]}
5. ^ Hamer et al. (2006)

References

• Bingham, C.T. (1905):The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Lepidoptera, Volume 1
• Evans, W.H. (1932): The Identification of Indian Butterflies (2nd ed). Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.
• Hamer, K.C.; Hill, J.K.; Benedick, S.; Mustaffa, N.; Chey, V.K. & Maryati, M. (2006): Diversity and ecology of carrion- and fruit-feeding butterflies in Bornean rain forest. Journal of Tropical Ecology 22: 25–33. doi:10.1017/S0266467405002750 (HTML abstract)
• Savela, Markku (2007): Markku Savela's Lepidoptera and some other life forms: Amathusia. Version of 2007-MAR-27. Retrieved 2007-SEP-08.
• Susanth, C.; Premkrishnan, B.V. & Murukesh, R. (2007): Occurrence of Amathusia phidippus phidippus (Linnaeus) confirmed in southern India. Version of 2007-MAY-16. Retrieved 2007-SEP-08.
• Wynter-Blyth, M.A. (1957): Butterflies of the Indian Region. Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.