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Jungle Denizen
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
Lexias pardalis The Archduke
Lexias pardalis is a Nymphalid butterfly that occurs from North-East India and Southern China to Sumatra, Borneo and the Philippines. It is strongly sexually dimorphic and there have been previous postings to TN from Vietnam (both sexes), Sumatra (female) and Brunei (male). For today's post I have found a picture of a female L. pardalis from Brunei that has an aberrant upperside. Compared with the normal females in the other TN posts, you will see that this one has the sub-marginal and marginal series of striae much larger and paler.
In Borneo, these butterflies have usually been treated as identical to the Malay subspecies L. p. dirteana but I note from recent web searches that the Japanese author Tsukada has created a subspecific name L. p. borneensis for specimens from this island. I will have to try to get a copy of this work to see how he has distinguished the two races.
The genus Lexias contains approximately 18 quite large species ranging from the Indian sub-continent, through the SE Asian islands to the Australian region. They are all denizens of the primary rain forest and are often found on the jungle floor feeding from rotting, fallen fruits. I was lucky enough to find this female resting in a small sunny spot in the lowland forest of Western Brunei, thus facilitating a reasonably well lit subject with a dark background.
This picture has been scanned from a slide and then cleaned up using Photoshop Elements to remove dust and scratches. It has also been cropped, resized and sharpened. |
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