''Curetis freda'', the parallel sunbeam, is a species of
butterfly
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...
in the
lycaenid
Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfl ...
subfamily
Curetinae
''Curetis'', the sunbeams, is a genus of gossamer-winged butterflies (Lycaenidae) from Southeast Asia. They are presently the only genus in the subfamily Curetinae.
Selected species
* '' Curetis acuta'' - angled sunbeam
** ''Curetis acuta formos ...
.
It was described by
John Nevill Eliot
Lt. Col. John Nevill Eliot (29 August 1912 – 11 April 2003)''England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007'' was an English entomologist who specialised in Oriental Lepidoptera especially Lycaenidae.
He was born in Woolwich, Lond ...
in 1959.
Its
type locality is the
Malay Peninsula
The Malay Peninsula (Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...
.
The species also occurs on
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...
and
Sumatra
Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...
,
and in the
Yala Province of
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
.
References
Curetis
Butterflies of Asia
Butterflies described in 1959
{{Lycaenidae-stub