Danaus melanippus explained

Danaus melanippus, the black veined tiger, white tiger, common tiger, or eastern common tiger, is a butterfly species found in tropical Asia which belongs to the "crows and tigers", that is, the danaine group of the brush-footed butterflies family.

It ranges from Assam in eastern India through South-East Asia south to Indonesia, and eastwards to the Philippines and through southern China to Taiwan.^[1] It has around 17 subspecies, and its closest relative is the Malay tiger, Danaus affinis.^[2]

Subspecies

Listed alphabetically:^[3]

• D. m. celebensis (Staudinger, 1889) – northern Sulawesi
• D. m. edmondii (Bougainville, 1837) – Philippines
• D. m. edwardi (van Eecke, 1914) – Simeulue
• D. m. eurydice (Butler, 1884) – Nias
• D. m. haruhasa Doherty, 1891 – Sumbawa - Alor
• D. m. hegesippus (Cramer, [1777]) – Peninsular Malaya, Langkawi, Singapore, Sumatra, Bangka, Belitung
• D. m. indicus (Fruhstorfer, 1899) – eastern India - Thailand, Indo-China
• D. m. keteus (Hagen, 1898) – Mentawai
• D. m. kotoshonis Matsumura, 1929 – Taiwan
• D. m. lotina (Fruhstorfer, 1904) – Natuna Island
• D. m. lotis (Cramer, [1779])
• D. m. melanippus (Cramer, [1777]) – Java
• D. m. meridionigra Martin, [1914] – central Sulawesi
• D. m. nesippus (Felder, 1862) – Nicobars
• D. m. pietersi (Doherty, 1891) – Enggano
• D. m. umbrosus Fruhstorfer, 1906 – Pualu Tello

See also

• List of butterflies of India
• List of butterflies of India (Nymphalidae)

References

• Book: Gaonkar, Harish . Harish Gaonkar . Butterflies of the Western Ghats, India (including Sri Lanka) - A Biodiversity Assessment of a Threatened Mountain System . Centre for Ecological Sciences . Bangalore, India . 1996 .
• Book: Gay . Thomas . Kehimkar . Isaac David . Punetha . Jagdish Chandra . Common Butterflies of India . Nature Guides . World Wide Fund for Nature-India by Oxford University Press . Bombay, India . 1992 . 978-0195631647 .
• Book: Haribal, Meena . The Butterflies of Sikkim Himalaya and Their Natural History . Gangtok, Sikkim, India . Sikkim Nature Conservation Foundation . 1992 .
• Book: Kunte, Krushnamegh . Butterflies of Peninsular India . India, A Lifescape . Hyderabad, India . Universities Press . 2000 . 978-8173713545 .
• Book: Wynter-Blyth, Mark Alexander . Mark Alexander Wynter-Blyth . Butterflies of the Indian Region . 1957 . Bombay, India . . 978-8170192329 .

Notes and References

1. Book: Evans . W.H. . William Harry Evans . The Identification of Indian Butterflies . 2nd . Mumbai, India . . 1932 .
2. Smith, David A. S.; Lushai, Gugs & Allen, John A. (2005). A classification of Danaus butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) based upon data from morphology and DNA. Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 144(2): 191–212. (HTML abstract)
3. http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/nymphalidae/danainae/danaus/ "Danaus Kluk, 1780"