Autumnleaf

Description:

Race malabarica, Fruhstorfer.— Males and females underside yellowish brown, paling anteriorly to rich golden yellow on the fore wing, shading anteriorly into dusky brown on the hind wing. Forewing: the apical half black, following a line from vein 12 opposite the Discocellulars, passing through apex of cell, obliquely across middle of interspace 3 and curving down to tornus ; a black spot near apex of cell coalescing with the inner margin of 1he black colour; a short, very oblique, broad golden-yellow band, broader in the female than in the male, from middle of costal margin to interspace 5; a spot beyond in line with it in interspace 4; two, sometimes three, minute, preapical white specks; the cilia fulvous, touched with white, anteriorly. Hind wing uniform ; the costal margin broadly as noted above, a subterminal narrow band and narrower terminal line posteriorly, dusky black; a postdiscal black spot in interspaces 2 and 5 respectively; the cilia fulvous. Underside very variable, closely resembling a dry leaf. No two specimens are ever alike. The ground-colour varies from reddish to dark greenish brown with irrorations of greyish and black scales; apex of the fore and the terminal margin posteriorly of the hind wing more or less lilacine; fore and hind wings crossed by a dark narrow discal fascia, generally bordered on the inner side by a greyish line; this fascia bent inwards at right angles above vein 6 of the forewing and in most specimens, bordered internally by a diffuse pale patch and externally by an oblique whitish mark, beyond which is a subcostal white spot, followed by a transverse sinuous postdiscal series of obscure ocelli crossing both wings, each ocellus centred by a minute dot, white on the fore, black on the hind wing. In the male there are generally, but not invariably, a number of whitish spots on the basal areas of both wings. Antennae blackish brown, ochraceous at apex ; head, thorax and abdomen dark fulvous brown; beneath, the palpi white, the thorax and abdomen pale brown.