Appias wardii
species of insect
Appias wardii, the Indian albatross or Ward's albatross, is a small butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites, which is found in India.
Description
Wet-season brood
The upperside of the male has the ground colour white. Forewing has the base densely and broadly irrorated with black scales which gradually merge along the costa into the black apical area that occupies about one-third of the wing, the inner margin of this area irregular, passing in a curve from costa to vein 4, thence vertically to vein 3 outwards in interspace 2 and irregularly to the dorsum; a curved preapical series of four or five white spots superposed on the black area. Hindwing: slightly irrorated (sprinkled) with black scales at base which leave a terminal series of large, somewhat diamond-shaped, black spots at the apices of veins 3 to 7. Underside, forewing: white, apex butter yellow, a somewhat narrow zigzag curved irregular black band from middle of costa to tornus. Hindwing: uniform butter yellow.
Female has the upperside similar to that of the male, but differs in the much greater extent of the black area which occupies the outer apical half of the forewing and on the hindwing forms a broad continuous terminal band; the superposed spots on black area of forewing reduced to two and the irroration of black scales at the bases of the wings more dense; on the hindwing this latter extends subdorsally to the black terminal margin. Underside, forewing: white, basal half of cell suffused with sulphur yellow; a very broad curved black band crosses the wing from costa to tornus, the inner margin of this irregular, the outer margin fairly even; apex pearly bluish white. The hindwing is uniform, pearly bluish white.
Dry-season brood
The male has the upperside similar to the wet-season form but on the forewing the irroration of black scales at base and the black on apical area much restricted, the latter in most specimens has a more or less rubbed appearance; the white preapical spots very ill-defined.
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This entry incorporates text from “Appias wardii” 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.