Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France, 102 (2), 1997 : 129-132.

The biology of Abisara neophron neophron (Hewitson, 1860) from Nepal (Lepidoptera, Riodinidae)

Curtis J. Callaghan

Av. Suba 130-25 Casa 6, Bogota, Colombia

In this paper I present field and laboratory observations on the biology of Abisara neophron (Hewitson, 1860), a riodinid butterfly from Nepal. The life history of this butterfly has previously been undescribed.

Nominate Abisara neophron ranges from Thailand west to central Nepal from sea level to 1300 meters in the Himalayan foothills with a few old records from the Kathmandu valley from 1600 to 1900 m.

I made field observations from March 26 to March 30, 1996 in a secondary woods growing on abandoned cultivated terraces beside lake Phewa Tal at Pohkara, Kaski district, Nepal. At 800 meters above sea level, and with annual precipitation of 3497 mm, the forest is classified as Riverine Forest (Tripathi, 1984), a formation found beside lakes and streams from 300 to 1200 m. Typical trees are Acacia catechu and Dalbergia sisoo which reach heights of 10-12 m, permitting lush understorey vegetation to grow (fig. 1).

The foodplant of A. neophron is Ardisia solanacea Roxb. (Myrsinaceae), an understorey shrub up to a meter in height with glabrous, lanceolate leaves up to 11 cm in length, with round purple fruits. It grows on the shaded slopes of gullies (fig. 2). At 12 : 42, I observed a female ovipositing. She landed on a leaf or A. solanacea, walked to the edge, and reaching under the leaf with her abdomen, deposited a small, shiny black egg on the ventral surface. The next day I saw a second female lay eight eggs between 11 : 25 and 12 : 30. The eggs were laid singly and well dispersed on different plants, except in one case where two eggs were placed on the same leaf. I gathered 7 leaves with the eggs attached. To obtain additional eggs, two females were kept in a plastic bag with some foodplant, on which a single egg was found. The females were subsequently released. Nine eggs and foodplant were taken to Kathmandu where the larvae were reared.