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Project Noah Nature School
Hypolimnas misippus
The genus Hypolimnas comprises of 29 species worldwide. Males of Hypolimnas misippus are blackish with distinctive white spots that are fringed in blue. Females are in multiple forms that include male like forms while others appear like the toxic Danaus chrysippus and Danaus plexippus butterfles. They are found across Africa, Asia, and Australia. (wikipedia)
In a park, urban environment.
The "Eggfly" part is something of a misnomer, but refers to the remarkable behaviour of a closely related Asian species; Read more here http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.comMala...
Rautenbachf, thank you once again for the information. I like the idea of having a mystery person around who can teach things when needed :D Great for me, great for PN :) Have a nice weekend // Tina
Tiz
Your photo is that of a male Hypolimnas misippus. The female Hypolimnas misippus looks completely different than the male (see photo here: http://www.learnaboutbutterflies.com/Afr...). It is the female Hypolimnas misippus that mimics the African Monarch butterfly (Danaus chrysippus) which is poisonous. The female Hyplimnas misippus is however not poisonous but the fact that she looks like the African Monarch scares off predators.
Reading about this butterfly gives me gray hair. Here is an article that some ppl here will find interesting: http://cadra.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/bu... I dont know how scientific it is though. One conclusion after reading through (I admit, not every word of the article) is that some butterfly species mimics the Hypolimnas misippus... But I dont understand why!
Great Daniele, thank you very much! Oh, your spotting must have reached a respectable age for a butterfly! I hope he/she made a lot of pretty babies :D
Chief, I was actually looking at your eggfly spotting, and that gave me the name in the first place. But the one you suggested has not been spotted "down here" from what I have read so far. One example: "The great eggfly butterfly, Hypolimnas bolina (L.) is widely distributed throughout the Oriental region (Corbet & Pendlebury, 1992), with odd Afrotropical records from Kenya, Ethiopia (Larsen, 1996), Mauritius (Williams, 2007) and Madagascar (Paulian, 1956). In Seychelles, a single male was seen on Alphonse Island on the 1 April 2007 (Betts, 2009). A additional unverified Seychelles recorded was made by Hill, et al. (2002) on Marianne Island. But thank you for helping out :)
Hi Tina!
Here's the distribution for Hypolimnas misippus on eol:
http://eol.org/pages/163036/maps
I have also seen it in Zanzibar:
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/830...
Spotted on Aug 1, 2013
Submitted on Aug 2, 2013
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