''Parantirrhoea'' is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

butterfly genus in the family

Nymphalidae The Nymphalidae are the largest family of butterflies, with more than 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. Belonging to the superfamily Papilionoidea, they are usually medium-sized to large butterflies. Most species ha ...

."''Parantirrhoea'' Wood-Mason, 1881"
at Markku Savela's ''Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms'' Its only species, ''Parantirrhoea marshalli'', the Tranvancore evening brown, is endemic to the Western Ghats of India.

James Wood-Mason James Wood-Mason (December 1846 – 6 May 1893) was an English zoologist. He was the director of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, after John Anderson (zoologist), John Anderson. He collected marine animals and lepidoptera, but is best known for h ...

described this species from the specimens in the collection of G F L Marshall which were collected by Harold S. Ferguson who was director of the State Museum at

Trivandrum Thiruvananthapuram ( ), also known as Trivandrum, is the capital city of the Indian state of Kerala. As of 2011, the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation had a population of 957,730 over an area of 214.86 sq. km, making it the largest and ...

. Little was known about the species in the wild until a population was discovered in the

Periyar Tiger Reserve Periyar National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary (PNP) is a protected area located in the districts of Idukki district, Idukki and Pathanamthitta district, Pathanamthitta in Kerala, India. It is a renowned Project Elephant, elephant and Project Tige ...

in 1993. Sightings of both sexes of this butterfly are reported in the southern region of the Western Ghats in 2002 (Kunhikrishnan (2002)). In 2006, larvae were collected from an Etah jungle like habitat in Kallar-Ponmudi valley, a northerly extension of the Ashambu hills of southern Western Ghats. Caterpillars collected were reared in laboratory conditions. It is also known from Periyambadi in Kodagu.

Description

Males and females: Upperside, both wings dark fuscous suffused with rich deep violet. Forewing with an outwardly and forwardly arched subcrescentic pale violet or mauve band, commencing beyond the middle of the wing at the costal vein, terminating at the inner angle, and crossed obliquely by a series of three small white spots disposed in a straight line parallel to the outer margin, and placed upon folds of as many consecutive interspaces, the last being between the second and third median vein. Hindwing relatively longer tailed than in '' Melanitis ismene'' Cramer, with the membranous parts of the divergent tail almost wholly formed by the produced wing-membrane of the interspace between the second and third median vein, a very narrow anterior membranous edging being contributed by the interspace next in front; and with rather more than the basal two-thirds of its length in front of the discoidal vein and subcostal vein ochreous. Underside: both wings ochreous, obscurely striated with a deeper shade of the same colour, and marked with a submarginal series of inconspicuous brown specks, the probable rudiments of

ocelli A simple eye or ocellus (sometimes called a pigment pit) is a form of eye or an optical arrangement which has a single lens without the sort of elaborate retina that occurs in most vertebrates. These eyes are called "simple" to distinguish the ...

References

External links

Status report in India
Melanitini Butterflies of Asia Taxa named by James Wood-Mason {{Satyrinae-stub