Drupadia scaeva (Hewitson, 1869)

Ge, Sixun, Jiang, Zhuoheng, Ren, Lili & Hu, Shaoji, 2021, New records of two lycaenid butterfly species (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in China, with the description of a new subspecies, Biodiversity Data Journal 9, pp. 69073-69073 : 69073

Drupadia scaeva (Hewitson, 1869)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Si-Xun Ge; Zhuo-Heng Jiang ; individualCount: 3; sex: 3 males; lifeStage: adult; Taxon : scientificName: Drupadia scaeva (Hewitson, 1869); kingdom: Animalia ; phylum: Arthropoda ; class: Insecta ; order: Lepidoptera ; family: Lycaenidae ; genus: Drupadia ; specificEpithet: scaeva; taxonRank: species; scientificNameAuthorship: (Hewitson, 1869); Location : country: China; stateProvince: Yunnan Province; county: Mengla Country ; locality: Menglun township ; maximumElevationInMeters: 800 m a.s.l.; verbatimCoordinates: 21°9629′ N, 101°2073′ E; Identification : identifiedBy: Shao-Ji Hu ; dateIdentified: 2021; Event : samplingProtocol: sweep net; year: 2021; month: 4; day: 24; habitat: Rain Forest ; Record Level : basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Description

Male (Fig. 1 ): Fore-wing length 12 mm. Upperside: Fore-wing entirely blackish-brown. Hind-wing blackish-brown with oval orange patch on the costal margin. The lower part of hind-wing iridescent blue, with two black spots surrounded by whitish lines distally in spaces 2 and 1b. Tails blackish with white tips. Underside: Both wings greyish-white with scattered irregular dark markings. Fore-wing with large greyish sub-quadrilateral apical spot; outer marginal area from veins M3 to 2A pale orange, with three dark parallel wavy striae narrowly developed. Two basal spots in the discocell and a small dark spot distinctly developed within the space 1b proximally. Hind-wing whitish, with delicate dark spots and stripes. The greyish apical spot large, with scattered wavy striae; five irregular spots present in tornal area; dark markings at the ends of both discocells strongly developed as parallel wavy striae; two tornal spots in spaces 2 and 1a, with light bluish scales in spaces 1a, 1b and 2.

Male genitalia (Fig. 2 ): Highly sclerotised. Ring straight of moderate width; tegumen extends into two triangular-shaped long lobes, elongated as flattened tips distally in the lateral view. Valve triangulate, rather elongated distally with a slightly curved pointed tip. Aedeagus rather strong, dorsally curved with a radian in the lateral view. Juxta small, round disc-shaped in posterior view.

Distribution

Myanmar; Thailand; Singapore; India; Bhutan; Laos; Vietnam; China (new record)

Notes

We tentatively identified specimens collected in this study as ssp. Tajuria sekii cooperi , with the bluish scales in the centre of fore-wings absent and a relatively limited violet area on hind-wings.

Figures

Figure 1. Male of Drupadia scaeva (Hewitson, 1869) collected in Menglun Township, Mengla County, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China.

Figure 2. Male genitalia of D. scaeva: A. entire genitalia (except aedeagus); B. lateral view of ring and tegumen; C. dorsal view of tegumen; D. ventral view of valves; E. lateral view of aedeagus; F. posterior view of juxta.