Burara gomata

Range

The pale green awlet ranges from India, Myanmar, the Malay Peninsula, the Philippines, and the Indonesian archipelago. In India, the butterfly is found in South India up to North Kanara, and along the Himalayas from Sikkim to Assam and eastwards to Myanmar.

The type locality is Darjeeling in the north of West Bengal.

Status

This species is rare in South India but not rare in the Himalayas.

Description

The butterfly has a wingspan of 50 to 55 mm.

Edward Yerbury Watson (1891) gives a detailed description:

Male. Upperside pale vinaceous brown; both wings with pale brownish yellow streaks longitudinally between the veins. Abdomen blackish brown with yellowish bands. Cilia yellowish. Underside dark brown, with the veins and longitudinal streaks between them greyish green, the brown showing only along each side of the veins; posterior margin of forewing broadly pale vinaceous; exterior margin of both wings defined by a brown line. Third joint of palpi and edge of sides brown, the rest yellow. Thorax, legs and abdomen beneath orange yellow.

Female. Expanse 2.3 inches. Upperside very dark glossy bronzygreen, shading off into glossy indigo-blue at the apex and outer margin. Underside with the markings and ground-colour darker than in Sikkim males; forewing with a pale green spot in the second median interspace, with a larger one in the interspace below it, in the male these spots are merged in a large patch of the ochreous ground-colour from the inner margin. The green markings everywhere more restricted and of a darker shade than in the male.|Watson}}

Life history

The adult butterfly is crepuscular in activity. The larva has been recorded on Heptapleurum venulosum, Heptapleurum wallichianum, Embelia ribes var. ribes, Heptapleurum luridum, Heptapleurum heptaphyllum, Trevesia sundaica, and Horsfieldia species.

File:Pale green awlet.jpg|alt=Pale green awlet|Picture taken at Gua Tempurung, Malaysia File:Pale green awlet Malaysia.jpg|alt=Pale green awlet|Picture taken at Gua Tempurung, Malaysia

References

References

1. Card for {{LepIndex
2. Markku Savela's website on Lepidoptera [http://www.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/hesperioidea/hesperiidae/coeliadinae/bibasis/index.html Page on genus ''Bibasis''.]
3. Swinhoe, Charles. (1911–1912). "Lepidoptera Indica. Vol. IX". Lovell Reeve and Co..
4. Vane-Wright and de Jong (2003) (see TOL web pages on [http://tolweb.org/Bibasis/94259/2007.02.21 genus ''Bibasis''] and [http://tolweb.org/Burara/94260/2007.02.21 genus ''Burara''] in the [http://tolweb.org/ Tree of Life Web Project]) state that ''Bibasis'' contains just three diurnal species, the crepuscular remainder having been removed to ''Burara''. The species now shifted to ''Burara'' are morphologically and behaviorally distinct from ''Bibasis'', within which many authors have formerly included them.
5. (2015). "A Synoptic Catalogue of the Butterflies of India". Butterfly Research Centre, Bhimtal & Indinov Publishing, New Delhi.
6. (1932). "The Identification of Indian Butterflies". [[Bombay Natural History Society]].
7. E. Y., Watson. (1891). "Hesperiidae Indicae : being a reprint of descriptions of the Hesperiidae of India, Burma, and Ceylon". Vest and Company.
8. (2018-04-10). "Larval host plants of the butterflies of the Western Ghats, India". Journal of Threatened Taxa.