Sovia hyrtacus

Sovia hyrtacus, the bicolour ace or white-branded ace,[1] is a butterfly belonging to the family Hesperiidae.[2][3][4] It is found in Western Ghats from Goa to Kerala.[1][5]

Bicolour ace
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Lepidoptera
Family:
Hesperiidae
Genus:
Sovia
Species:
S. hyrtacus
Binomial name
Sovia hyrtacus

The larvae feed on Ochlandra travancorica.[6]

Description

In 1897, Lionel de Nicéville described this butterfly as:

Male. Upperside, both wings and cilia shining dark hair-brown. Forewing with two dots placed obliquely outwards towards the end of the discoidal cell, one or both sometimes absent; three conjugated subapical dots, and two on the disc at the bases of the median interspaces, all these dots colourless and transparent; the "male-mark" shining deep black and narrow. Hindwing immaculate. Underside, both wings dull fuscous. Forewing with the transparent dots as on the upperside; the inner margin very broadly white crossed in the middle by the "male-mark;" the costa outwardly tinted with ochreous; the apex bearing some obscure elongated dark dashes outwardly bordered with ochreous. Hindwing bearing a broad discal pure white band, broadest on the abdominal margin, not reaching the costa, anteriorly marked with one or two dark brown dots, sometimes with two or three in the middle; the outer dark half of the wing bearing some obscure ochreous spots. Palpi above, thorax and abdomen concolorous with the wings, beneath and legs yellowish-white. Female. Upper-side, both wings as in the male, but the ground-colour paler. Forewing with no "male-mark" Underside, both wings as in the male.

— Lionel de Nicéville[2]

References
  1. Varshney, R.; Smetacek, P. A Synoptic Catalogue of the Butterflies of India (2015 ed.). New Delhi: Butterfly Research Centre, Bhimtal and Indinov Publishing. p. 42.
  2. de Nicéville, Lionel (1897). "Indo and Austro-Malayan regions". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 66: 575.
  3. Evans, W. H. (1949). A Catalogue of the Hesperiidae from Europe, Asia, and Australia in the British Museum. London: British Museum (Natural History). Department of Entomology. p. 248.
  4. Savela, Markku. "Sovia hyrtacus (de Nicéville, 1897)". Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms. Retrieved July 3, 2018.
  5. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a work now in the public domain: Swinhoe, Charles (1912–1913). Lepidoptera Indica. Vol. X. London: Lovell Reeve and Co. pp. 274–275.
  6. Kalesh, S & S K Prakash (2007). "Additions of the larval host plants of butterflies of the Western Ghats, Kerala, Southern India (Rhopalocera, Lepidoptera): Part 1". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 104 (2): 235–238.


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