Mycalesis

[Angiud]

I found today an unusual (for me) Bush Brown. It looks to me like a Mycaelesis francisca sanatana or (less sure) a Mycalesis gotama.


Mycalesis sp.

Any input?

[Painted Jezebel]

You need to be very careful with Mycalesis species as they have wet and dry season forms.

If you got M. francisca from my site, please disregard. This is a throwback from my old site and needs to be deleted (also M. distanti). The Mycalesis are the last Genus I need to get confirmed, but will not start that until I have finished the individual pages for the Hesperiidae.

Both species you mention are purely Northern Thai species, and have not been recorded from the Peninsular.

Nevertheless, reduced size of spotting is usually for the dry season forms, and we are still in the wet season here, so it is a bit odd.

[Psyche]

I chanced on to this picture and it looks like a goood fit.
http://www.malaeng.com/blog/wp-conte...suaveolens.jpg

TL Seow

[Painted Jezebel]

I agree, it does look a good fit. Full name Mycalesis suaveolens duguidi (Wood Mason's Bush Brown).

However, this is another northern species, not previously found on the peninsular. Neverthess, Samui and KP seem to have a tendancy of having species not meant to be there!

[Angiud]

I found this pic on the Thai website savebutterfly.com:


and this one is mine:

Mycalesis sp.

Looks the same butterfly to me, he use the Pisuth Ek-Amnuay picture to.

But still continued to doubt, as Les says, it could be a dry season coloration

[Psyche]

I was looking at some Australian butterflies when I saw that M. perseus is found there and voila ! there is a dry season form which looks very similar to this.

A search brings up this dry season form of M. perseus from India.
The wing perspective is distorted and the colour rendition is too dull.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/satyend...57623002604607
The key feature is the sub-basal dark line which is very irregular and matches your pic.
The dark line in M. suaveolens is too smooth, & moreover it is very unlikely to have stray into KPN from far north.

TL Seow

[Psyche]

I didn't realised that the taxon distanti is now separated rom intermedia as a distinct species.

The dsf of M perseus in my previous is probably incorrect.

Even in dsf the alignment of the eyespots should remain the same. Thus since the 3 hindwing spots (their centre dots actually) are almost in alignment we can rule out M. perseus.

This leaves the dsf of M. intermedia & distant.

M. intermedia typically have 2 forewing spots , thus 2 dots in dsf; also the upper end of the white band on the hindwing is angled in (probably inconsistent feature).
Here is a valid dsf example.
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/185...sis-intermedia

This leaves the dsf of M. distanti to consider.

TL Seow
PS. It does get very confusing as I don't know which of the images on the net are correct, but I believed it is one of these , perseus, intermedia, & distanti.

[Psyche]

On the assumption that none of the northern species have invaded KPN, I am trying to see whether the identity can be deduced by a process of elimination.
It seems the extreme dsf of all spp. can have very similar patterns with a yellowish diffusion of the white band. As to why it occur during the wet season it is a mystery.

Here is a correct image of a dsf M. perseus from India.
Notice the dots in space 2 & 3 are well out of alignment with the 2 dots in space 1b.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co...W_IMG_4190.jpg
I think we can safely ruled out M. perseus.

M. intermedia & distant usually have 2 spot on the forewing, and the white band with the upper end angled in.
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/185...sis-intermedia
I think we can rule these 2 out.

M. perseoides often have 4 spot on the forewing & would be a prime candidate, but the sub-basal dark line typically form a tooth at space 1b.
http://blog-imgs-42.fc2.com/s/p/a/sp...20110122-1.jpg
I think we can rule this one out as well.

This leaves visala & mineus . Example of visala drawings.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...salaDSF_64.jpg
Example of mineus dsf. M. mineus typically have 2 (at most 3) spots on the forewing.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...W_IMG_4180.jpg

It looks like the most likely candidate is visala.

TL Seow
PS. It looks like the dsf of visala is quite different.
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/185...calesis-visala
Its back to square one.
The greatest similarity visually is with perseus pic 9 here, but the alignment of the spots don't match.
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/185...alesis-perseus

[Angiud]

Thanks Dr. Seow for the big and interesting explanations. I'll follow to check the Mycalesis in my area to see for the different decorations wet-dry season.

[Psyche]

I gathered from your comment in post 1 that both franscisca & gotama have been recorded in KPN.
I had checked these out. Both have 2 spots on the forewing underside, not counting those little satellites. Typically they leave only 2 white dots in dsf.
There are enough examples of both on the net for comparison.

Your pic have 4 white dots nicely spaced out on the forewing.
3 species typically have 4 spots on the forewing , perseus, perseiodes, & visala.
The misalignment of the hindwing spots in perseus is quite constant, eg even in this Australian ssp. dsf.
http://www.purvision.com/butterflies/
M. visala as we had seen on the Indian website have a radically different dsf.
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/185...calesis-visala

This leaves M. perseoides. The 'tooth' at the lower end of the subbasal line at vein 1b is variable and can be quite open, eg
http://www.butterflycircle.com/check...20-%20Khew.jpg
Your pic actually shows a tooth at the same point although it is not so clear-cut.
The dsf of perseoides can present with a similar pattern & colouration as shown in these drawings of the original description.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...oides_60_2.jpg
I am unable to find a valid matching image on the net.

I may be wrong, but my money is on perseoides. (or should that be baht?)

TL Seow