''Danaus genutia'', the common tiger, is one of the common

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

of India. It belongs to the "crows and tigers", that is, the Danainae group of the brush-footed butterflies family. The butterfly is also called striped tiger in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

to differentiate it from the equally common plain tiger, '' Danaus chrysippus''.Kunte (2000): 45, pp. 148–149. The species was first described by Pieter Cramer in 1779.

Description

The butterfly closely resembles the monarch butterfly ('' Danaus plexippus'') of the Americas. The wingspan is . Both sexes of the butterfly have tawny wings with veins marked with broad black bands. The male has a pouch on the hindwing.Wynter-Blyth (1957): p. 69. The margins of the wings are black with two rows of white spots. The underside of the wings resembles the upperside but is paler in colouration. The male common tiger has a prominent black-and-white spot on the underside of the hindwing. In drier regions the tawny part of the hindwing pales and approaches white in colour making it very similar to the

white tiger The white tiger or bleached tiger is a leucistic pigmentation variant of the Mainland tiger. It is reported in the wild from time to time in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, in the Sunderbans region and ...

(''D. melanippus''). Pairing of common tiger butterfly.jpg, Pairing in Bihar, India Stripedtiger egg sec.jpg, Egg Stripedtiger cat sec.jpg, Caterpillar Stripedtiger pupa sec.jpg, Pupa Danaus genutia female in Kerala, India.jpg, Female in

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Ca ...

Danaus genutia-male.jpg, Male in

Chiang Mai Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...

Distribution and ecology

''D. genutia'' is distributed throughout India,

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and extending to South-East Asia and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

(except

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

). At least in the

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

n part of its range it is fairly common, locally very common. This butterfly occurs in scrub jungles, fallowland adjacent to habitation, dry and moist deciduous forests, preferring areas of moderate to heavy rainfall. Also occurs in degraded hill slopes and ridges, both, bare or denuded, and, those covered with secondary growth. While it is a strong flier, it never flies rapidly or high. It has stronger and faster strokes than the plain tiger. The butterfly ranges forth in search of its host and nectar plants. It visits gardens where it nectars on the flowers of ''

Adelocaryum ''Adelocaryum'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Boraginaceae. Its native range is southern Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is s ...

'', ''

Cosmos The cosmos (, ) is another name for the Universe. Using the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos, and understandings of the reasons for its existence and significance, are studied in ...

'', '' Celosia'', '' Lantana'', ''

Zinnia ''Zinnia'' is a genus of plants of the tribe Heliantheae within the family Asteraceae. They are native to scrub and dry grassland in an area stretching from the Southwestern United States to South America, with a centre of diversity in Mexi ...

'', and similar flowers.

Defence against predators, mimicry

Members of this genus are leathery, tough to kill and fake death. Since they are unpleasant to smell and taste, they are soon released by the predators, recover and fly off soon thereafter. The butterfly sequesters toxins from plants of the family

Asclepiadaceae The Asclepiadoideae are a subfamily of plants in the family Apocynaceae. Formerly, they were treated as a separate family under the name Asclepiadaceae, e.g. by APG II, and known as the milkweed family. They form a group of perennial herbs, twi ...

. The butterflies also congregate with other danaiines to sip from the sap of ''

Crotalaria ''Crotalaria'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae (subfamily Faboideae) commonly known as rattlepods. The genus includes over 700 species of herbaceous plants and shrubs. Africa is the continent with the majority of ''Crotalari ...

'', '' Heliotropium'' and other plants which provide the

pyrrolizidine alkaloid Pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs), sometimes referred to as necine bases, are a group of naturally occurring alkaloids based on the structure of pyrrolizidine. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids are produced by plants as a defense mechanism against insect he ...

s which they sequester. A study in north-eastern India showed a preference to foraging on '' Crotalaria juncea'' compared to ''

Bauhinia purpurea ''Bauhinia purpurea'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to the Indian subcontinent and Myanmar, and widely introduced elsewhere in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Common names include orchid tree, purple ...

'', '' Barleria cristata rosea'' and '' Nerium oleander''. To advertise their unpalatability, the butterfly has prominent markings with a striking colour pattern. The striped tiger is mimicked by both sexes of the Indian Tamil lacewing ('' Cethosia nietneri mahratta'') and the leopard lacewing (''

Cethosia cyane ''Cethosia cyane'', the leopard lacewing, is a species of heliconiine butterfly found from India to southern China (southern Yunnan), and Indochina. Its range has expanded in the last few decades, and its arrival in the southern part of the Mal ...

'') and females of the common palmfly (''

Elymnias hypermnestra ''Elymnias hypermnestra'', the common palmfly, is a species of satyrine butterfly found in South and Southeast Asia. Description As in some other species in the genus ''Elymnias'', the common palmfly has a precostal cell in the hindwings and a ...

'').Wynter-Blyth (1957): p. 56.

Life history

This butterfly lays its egg singly under the leaves of any of its host plants of family

. The

caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sy ...

is black and marked with bluish-white and yellow spots and lines. It has three pairs of tentacles on its body. It first eats the eggshell and then proceeds to eat leaves and vegetative parts of the plant. The

chrysalis A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in thei ...

(pupa) is green and marked with golden-yellow spots. The caterpillar of the common tiger butterfly obtains a supply of poison by eating poisonous plants, which make the caterpillar and butterfly a distasteful morsel for predators. The most common food plants of the common tiger in peninsular India are small herbs, twiners and creepers from the family

, including: * ''

Asclepias curassavica ''Asclepias curassavica'', commonly known as tropical milkweed, is a flowering plant species of the milkweed genus, '' Asclepias''. It is native to the American tropics and has a pantropical distribution as an introduced species. Other common n ...

'' * '' Ceropegia intermedia''Wynter-Blyth (1957): p. 493. * '' Cynanchum dalhousieae'' * '' Raphistemma pulchellum'' * ''

Stephanotis ''Stephanotis'' is a genus of flowering plants first described in 1806. The name derives from the Greek stephanōtís (feminine adj.) fit for a crown, derivative of stéphanos (masculine) crown. It contains evergreen, woody-stemmed lianas with ...

'' species (including '' S. floribunda''?) * '' Tylophora tenuis''

Subspecies

It has some 16

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics ( morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all specie ...

; its

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

ary relationships are not completely resolved, but it appears to be closest to the

Malay tiger ''Danaus affinis'', the Malay tiger, mangrove tiger or swamp tiger, is a butterfly found in tropical Asia. It belongs to the "crows and tigers", the danaine group of the brush-footed butterflies family. This is a highly variable species. In ...

(''D. affinis'') and white tiger.Smith et al. (2005) * ''D. g. genutia'' (India to China, Sri Lanka, Andamans, Nicobars, Peninsular Malaya, Thailand, Langkawi, Singapore, Indochina, Taiwan, Hainan) * ''D. g. sumatrana'' Moore, 1883 (western and north-eastern Sumatra) * ''D. g. intermedia'' (Moore, 1883) * ''D. g. conspicua'' Butler, 1866 (southern Sulawesi) * ''D. g. niasicus'' Fruhstorfer, 1899 (Nias) * ''D. g. intensa'' (Moore, 1883) (Java, Bali, Bawean, Borneo) * ''D. g. partita'' (Fruhstorfer, 1897) (Lesser Sunda) * ''D. g. leucoglene'' C. & R. Felder, 1865 (northern Sulawesi) * ''D. g. tychius'' Fruhstorfer, 1910 (Selajar) * ''D. g. telmissus'' Fruhstorfer, 1910 (Butong Island) * ''D. g. wetterensis'' (Fruhstorfer, 1899) (Wetar Island, Timor) * ''D. g. laratensis'' (Butler, 1883) (Tanimbar Island) * ''D. g. kyllene'' Fruhstorfer, 1910 (Damar Island, Kai Island) * ''D. g. alexis'' (Waterhouse & Lyell, 1914) (Northern Territory to north-western Australia)

References

* Bhuyan, M.; Deka, M.; Kataki, D. & Bhattacharyya, P. R. (2005). Nectar host plant selection and floral probing by the Indian butterfly ''Danaus genutia'' (Nymphalidae). ''Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera'' 38: 79–84
PDF fulltext
* . * * Smith, David A. S.; Lushai, Gugs & Allen, John A. (2005). A classification of ''Danaus'' butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) based upon data from morphology and DNA. '' Zool. J. Linn. Soc.'' 144(2): 191–212. (HTML abstract) *

Footnotes

External links

Sri Lanka Wild Information Database
{{Taxonbar, from=Q718721 Butterflies of Borneo Butterflies of Indochina Butterflies of Singapore Butterflies of Sri Lanka Danaus (butterfly) Butterflies described in 1779 Insects of Pakistan Butterflies of Asia Taxa named by Pieter Cramer