Melanitis leda

{{Speciesbox

| name = Common evening brown

| image = Melanitis leda-Kadavoor-2017-04-26-001.jpg

| image_caption = Wet-season form

| image2 = Melanitis leda dry season form at Kadavoor.jpg

| image2_caption = Dry-season form

| taxon = Melanitis leda

| authority = (Linnaeus, 1758)

File:Common Evening Brown resting.jpg

| synonyms =

Papilio leda Linnaeus, 1758
Papilio ismene Cramer, [1775]
Papilio solandra Fabricius, 1775
Cyllo helena Westwood, 1851
Cyllo fulvescens Guénée, 1863
Melanitis leda africana Fruhstorfer, 1908
Melanitis leda africana f. zitenides Fruhstorfer, 1908
Melanitis leda ab. plagiata Aurivillius, 1911

}}

Melanitis leda, the common evening brown, is a common species of butterfly found flying at dusk. The flight of this species is erratic. They are found in Africa, South Asia and South-east Asia extending to parts of Australia.{{Cite book|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287980260|title=A Synoptic Catalogue of the Butterflies of India |last1=Varshney |first1=R.K. |last2=Smetacek|first2=Peter|publisher=Butterfly Research Centre, Bhimtal & Indinov Publishing, New Delhi|year=2015|isbn=978-81-929826-4-9|location=New Delhi|pages=162–163|doi=10.13140/RG.2.1.3966.2164}}{{cite web |last=Savela |first=Markku |url=http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/nymphalidae/satyrinae/melanitis/#leda |title=Melanitis leda (Linnaeus, 1758) |website=Lepidoptera and Some Other Life Forms |access-date=July 2, 2018}}

Description

File:MooreThe Lepidoptera of CeylonPlate10.jpg

Wet-season form: Forewing: apex subacute; termen slightly angulated just below apex, or straight. Upperside brown. Forewing with two large subapical black spots, each with a smaller spot outwardly of pure white inwardly bordered by a ferruginous interrupted lunule; costal margin narrowly pale. Hindwing with a dark, white-centred, fulvous-ringed ocellus subterminally in interspace two, and the apical ocellus, sometimes also others of the ocelli, on the underside, showing through.

Underside paler, densely covered with transverse dark brown striae; a discal curved dark brown narrow band on forewing; a post-discal similar oblique band, followed by a series of ocelli: four on the forewing, that in interspace 8 the largest; six on the hindwing, the apical and subtornal the largest.{{Source-attribution|sentence=yes|{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/butterfliesvolii00bing#page/158/mode/2up/ |title=Fauna of British India. Butterflies Vol. 1|last=Bingham|first=Charles Thomas|author-link=Charles Thomas Bingham|year=1905|pages=158–159}}}}{{Source-attribution|sentence=yes|{{Cite book|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/103300#page/130/mode/1up|title=Lepidoptera Indica. Vol. II|last=Moore|first=Frederic|author-link=Frederic Moore|publisher=Lovell Reeve and Co.|year=1893–1896|location=London|pages=118–125}}}}

Dry-season form: Forewing: apex obtuse and more or less falcate; termen posterior to falcation straight or sinuous. Upperside: ground colour similar to that in the wet-season form, the markings, especially the ferruginous lunules inwardly bordering the black sub-apical spots on forewing, larger, more extended below and above the black costa. Hindwing: the ocellus in interspace 2 absent, posteriorly replaced by three or four minute white subterminal spots.

Underside varies in colour greatly. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen in both seasonal forms brown or greyish brown: the antennae annulated with white, ochraceous at apex.

Ecology

Resident butterflies are known to fight off visitors to the area during dusk hours.{{cite journal |author=D. J. Kermp |year=2003 |title=Twilight fighting in the evening brown butterfly, Melanitis leda (L.) (Nymphalidae): residency and age effects |journal=Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=7–13 |doi=10.1007/s00265-003-0602-7|s2cid=36085557 }} This chase behaviour is elicited even by pebbles thrown nearby.{{cite journal |author=D. J. Kemp |year=2002 |title=Visual mate searching behaviour in the evening brown butterfly, Melanitis leda (L.) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) |journal=Australian Journal of Entomology |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=300–305 |doi=10.1046/j.1440-6055.2002.00311.x |url=http://www.public.asu.edu/~atrlr/pdfs/Kemp,%20DJ%20(2002)AJE.pdf }}{{Dead link|date=March 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

The caterpillars feed on a wide variety of grasses including rice (Oryza sativa), bamboos, Andropogon, Rotboellia cochinchinensis,{{cite journal|author1=S. Kalesh |author2=S. K. Prakash |name-list-style=amp |year=2007 |title=Additions of the larval host plants of butterflies of the Western Ghats, Kerala, Southern India (Rhopalocera, Lepidoptera): Part 1 |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |issue=2 |pages= 235–238|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48380988#page/117/mode/1up |volume=104}} Brachiaria mutica, Cynodon, Imperata, and millets such as Oplismenus compositus,{{cite journal |author=Krushnamegh Kunte |year=2006 |title=Additions to known larval host plants of Indian butterflies |journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society |volume=103 |issue=1 |pages=119–120 |url=http://www.biodiversitylab.org/sites/default/files/images/website/KunteHostPlantAdditions06.pdf }} Panicum and Eleusine indica.{{cite web |author1=Gaden S. Robinson |author2=Phillip R. Ackery |author3=Ian J. Kitching |author4=George W. Beccaloni |author5=Luis M. Hernández |year=2007 |url=http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/projects/hostplants/ |title=HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants |access-date=September 27, 2010}}

Adults feed mainly on nectar, and in rare cases visit rotting fruits.{{cite journal |author1=K. C. Hamer |author2=J. K. Hill |author3=S. Benedick |author4=N. Mustaffa |author5=V. K. Chey |author6=M. Maryati |year=2006 |title=Diversity and ecology of carrion- and fruit-feeding butterflies in Bornean rain forest |journal=Journal of Tropical Ecology |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=25–33 |doi=10.1017/S0266467405002750|s2cid=86365463 }}