Kingdom Animalia Order Lepidoptera Family Nymphalidae Scientific name Mycalesis anaxias Rank Species | Phylum Arthropoda Superfamily Papilionoidea Tribe Elymniini Higher classification Mycalesis | |
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Similar Mycalesis, Butterfly, Mycalesis visala, Mycalesis intermedia, Nymphalidae | ||
The White-bar Bushbrown (Mycalesis anaxias) is a species of satyrid butterfly found in South and Southeast Asia. In South Asia, it inhabits Sikkim, eastwards through the hill-ranges to Assam, Cachar, Myanmar and Tenasserim. Also in Southern India, in the Nilgiris and Travancore.
Description
Wet-season form: male and female: Upperside dull van dyke-brown, paler in the female; subterminal and terminal fine lines on both forewings and hindwings fulvescent: cilia brown. Forewing with an oblique white preapical short band not quite reaching either the costa or the termen. Underside: forewing: basal area up to the white band, and in a transverse line from lower end of band to dorsum, blackish brown; terminal margin beyond broadly paler brown; a white-centred fulvous-ringed black ocellus in interspace 2, and two preapical, smaller similar ocelli, followed by a very sinuous subterminal and a straighter terminal dark brown line. Hindwing: basal two-thirds blackish brown, terminal border broadly paler, bearing normally seven ocelli similar to those on the forewing, and subterminal and terminal dark brown lines.
Dry-season form: Upperside as in the wet-season form. Underside differs in the ocelli being indistinct or absent, and the subterminal and terminal dark lines on both forewing and hindwing absent or very faint; the terminal margins are broadly rufescent brown, fading inwardly into lilacine, the oblique white bar on the forewing outwardly diffuse- Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen dark brown; the antennae ochraceous towards apex.
Wingspan: 51–60 mm. Male sex-mark in form 1.