I want to know its genus as well as species name. Please help me in identify this Thank you.
averyEnlightened
Can anyone help me to identify this Hesperid butterfly?
Share
Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
I want to know its genus as well as species name. Please help me in identify this Thank you.
avery
I understand your comments regarding species identification within the genus Pota thus but can you please explain how you jumped to the genus? What are the visual characters apparent on the photograph that firmly place it in this genus?
andrew
That is good advice regarding photographing male and females, and documenting the habitat and host plants.
It is unlikely to be a species of Ked Estes however, as Ked Estes is Afro-tropical and is not recorded within the Asian Subcontinent. The similarity is due, I guess, to the species being in the same family — most skippers and darts look very similar.
Andrew Pel
Raveena it will be better if you have pictures of both male and female with the wings showing both the upperside and underside/lower side. Also, you may provide information on the host or habitat where the specimen was spotted. To me, it looks like a Kedestes species-I am limited by the picture and information provided.
John Wick
The first suggestion, Hylephila, is not possible, as all Hylephila species are restricted to the Americas.
Identifying Hesperiinae of this general facies, from a slightly out of focus photograph of the ‘resting’ underside only, is always going to be, at best, tentative. The upperside offers important characters – not only wing pattern but also (in males) very often the androconia. This is pretty clearly a member of the Taractrocera group, which includes Taractrocera, Telicota, Oriens, Potanthus and Cephrenes. Various species of these genera can only be told apart reliably by dissection of the male genitalia (maybe soon by DNA). Neither of these character sets can be assessed from a photograph!
Ellicott is the second suggestion. However, to my eye, I get the impression the third segment of the labial palp is long and fine, whereas in Telicota it is short and stout. If so, then the choice would appear to be between Oriens and Potanthus. The latter has the basal section of the forewing subcosta fringed posteriorly with hair scales – perhaps visible in the photograph? – whereas the former genus does not. So Potanthus might be plausible.
According to The Butterflies of India website:
Potanthus spp. – Dart spp.
There are 19 species of Potanthus in India. Their species-level identification is based largely on structures of the male genitalia. Hence, they cannot be identified easily based on external traits such as wing patterns.
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/sp/1061/Potanthus-spp
I do not think this can be Taractrocera (the photograph shows an apiculus, which does not occur in this genus), or Cephrenes. There are two species of Telicota in India (http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/tx/339-Telicota). I do not think the underside hindwing pattern of the Himachal Pradesh specimen matches either. Nor does it correspond to any of the three species of Oriens (http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/tx/336-Oriens). In contrast, searching the web for Potanthus, whether correctly identified or not, there are images that look very similar to the Himachal Pradesh insect in question.
So, currently, my best guess is Potanthus sp.