Cigaritis lilacinus
species of butterfly
Cigaritis lilacinus, the lilac silverline, is a species of lycaenid or blue butterfly found in Asia.
Range
The lilac silverline is found in India, Myanmar and N.Thailand.
In India, this butterfly is found from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh to southern Karnataka, with also one record each from Rajasthan and Assam. The species has been located in Rawalpindi in Pakistan, and the following Indian states: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. The only resident, breeding population discovered is in Hesarghatta Lake in Bengaluru, Karanataka.
Description
Male
Upperside brown. Forewing with the basal and discal areas blue, somewhat iridescent blue in certain lights. Hindwing with the basal and inner space similarly blue, an orange-ochreous anal patch, a small black spot in the anal lobe, sometimes another on the margin in the next interspace; tails black, tipped with white, the orange-ochreous colour running half way up them; both wings with the outer marginal line blackish-brown. Cilia white. Underside pale brownish-ochreous, bands slightly darker than the ground colour, finely edged with black, with silvery scales down their middle.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cigaritis lilacinus” as species of butterfly. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of butterfly. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21247236. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Primary datasets, specimen catalogues, standards bodies and the most recent peer-reviewed literature.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Cigaritis lilacinus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.