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Striped Tiger

Danaus genutia

Photo by pamsai
Published on Project Noah
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12.2377, 79.0781

Field Notes

Description:

The Common Tiger (Danaus genutia) is one of the common butterflies of India. It belongs to the "Crows and Tigers", that is, the danainae group of the Brush-footed butterflies family. The butterfly is also called Striped Tiger in India to differentiate it from the equally common Plain Tiger, Danaus chrysippus.

The butterfly closely resembles the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) of the Americas. The wingspan is 75 to 95 mm. Both sexes of the butterfly have tawny wings with veins marked with broad black bands. The margins of the wings are black with two rows of white spots. The underside of the wings resembles the upperside but is paler in colouration. The male Common Tiger has a prominent black-and-white spot on the underside of the hindwing. In drier regions the tawny part of the hindwing pales and approaches white in colour making it very similar to the White Tiger.

Habitat:

spotted in my garden in Tamil Nadu, Southern India

Notes:

You can tell which one is the male by the little dark sex spot clearly visible in this photo, on the wing of the one holding on!

Species ID Suggestions

Striped Tiger

Danaus genutia

Reference Link
MartinL
2

Comments (8)
Arun
Nice spotting
pamsai
I am learning a lot from this site. Now I can see the difference between Danaus chrysippus and Danaus genutia - fascinating. i haven't looked so closely at butterflies before.
pamsai
right, very visable. He takes such nice photos, Kadavoor... Has many of the same butterflies that I have in my garden, Kerala being not so far from Tamil Nadu!
MartinL
Yes here's the brush organ on a similar species, a male of course, as you can now tell http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkadavoor/5260512948/ This occurs on all Danaus spp. and Euploea spp.
pamsai
Thanks Martini, that is really interesting. i will check them out more carefully in my garden in future. That's the pocket one can see marked there as a black spot, I suppose?
MartinL
The top one is the male. Males have a spot on the central hindwing. This spot is a pocket, containing a phermone gland. The male accesses this phermone by a brush organ inside his abdomen. He dips his brush into the phermone reservoir and flicks it into the air. This hopefully encourages an amorous response in the female resulting in the behavior documented above=)

Spotted for Missions

Mission
Butterflies & Moths of the World
Mission
Tamil Nadu Biodiversity
Mission
Butterflies of Tamil Nadu
Photographed
PublishedJanuary 10, 2012

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