The Clipper is a species of nymphalid butterfly found in South and South-East Asia found mostly in forested areas. The Clipper is a fast flying butterfly and has a habit of flying with its wings flapping stiffly between the horizontal position and a few degrees below the horizontal. It may glide between spurts of flapping.

Description

Male and female.
Upperside : ground-colour a bright purple, the subhyaline white spots near the apex of cell in the fore wing more opaque, the broad discal band of large white spots proportionately more basal further from the termen and very irregular, the spots, especially towards the hinder part of the wing, more widely separated, the spot in interspace 5 more acutely triangular and smaller, the two spots above shifted obliquely inwards towards the costa, making the outer margin of the discal band angulate at interspaces 5 and 6. Hind wing: the postdiscal and sub-terminal markings broader and more diffuse than in P. gambrisius, giving a dark shade to the whole of the apical half of the wing.

Underside pale greenish grey. Fore wing: the spots and markings except the basal black streaks as on the upperside, the groundcolour fading to an ashy grey towards the terminal margin. Hind wing similar to the underside of hind wing of P. gambrisius, but the discal transverse sinuous black line very broken and incomplete, the postdiscal, subterminal and terminal black markings somewhat better denned. Antennae black; head, thorax and abdomen bronze green, barred with black above ; beneath whitish.

Range

Western Ghats

Western Ghats

The Western Ghats, Western Ghauts or the Sahyādri is a mountain range along the western side of India. It runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghats block rainfall to the Deccan...

, Assam

Assam

Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...

, Myanmar

Myanmar

Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....

, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, and Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

 (Malaya

Malay Peninsula

The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...

, Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, and New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

).

Life history

Larva. Cylindrical; head and anal segment with short simple spines; segments 3 to 12 with longer branched spines, reddish brown in colour, those on 3 and 4 comparatively very long. Colour pale green, with yellowish-white lateral stripes one on each side.
Pupa "brown, boat-shaped." (After Davidson & Aitken)

Subspecies

Listed alphabetically.

• P. s. admiralia Rothschild, 1915
• P. s. apicalis Moore, 1878
• P. s. aruana Moore, [1897]
• P. s. bandana Fruhstorfer
• P. s. bellimontis Fruhstorfer, 1899
• P. s. borneensis Staudinger, 1889
• P. s. brunnea Staudinger, 1888
• P. s. couppei Ribbe, 1898
• P. s. cyaneus Moore, 1877
• P. s. ellina Fruhstorfer, 1899
• P. s. gambrisius (Fabricius, 1787)
• P. s. guineensis Fruhstorfer, 1899
• P. s. joloensis Fruhstorfer, 1899
• P. s. lilacinus Butler, 1879 – Blue Clipper
• P. s. nodrica (Boisduval, 1832)
• P. s. numita Fruhstorfer
• P. s. obiana Fruhstorfer, 1904
• P. s. pherekrates Fruhstorfer, 1904
• P. s. pherekides Fruhstorfer, 1904
• P. s. philippinensis Fruhstorfer, 1899 – Brown Clipper
• P. s. roepstorfii Moore, [1897]
• P. s. salentia (Hopffer, 1874)
• P. s. silvicola Fruhstorfer, 1897
• P. s. sulana Fruhstorfer, 1899
• P. s. sumatrensis Fruhstorfer, 1899
• P. s. sylla (Donovan, 1798)
• P. s. theriotes Fruhstorfer
• P. s. thesaurinus Grose-Smith, 1897
• P. s. thesaurus Mathew, 1887
• P. s. tualensis Fruhstorfer, 1899
• P. s. ugiensis Fruhstorfer
• P. s. virens Moore, 1877

External links

• Parthenos sylvia