Delias descombesi

Delias descombesi, the redspot Jezebel is a medium-sized butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites.

Description

Male

Upperside: opaque white. Forewing: costa and terminal margin very narrowly black; extreme base, apex broadly and termen submarginally more or less thickly irrorated (sprinkled) with black scales, the width of this blackish border decreases posteriorly along the termen. Hindwing: termen narrowly black, the black markings of the underside show dusky bluish through transparency.

Underside, forewings: black; an obliquely placed short broad bar along the discocellulars and a subterminal series of outwardly pointed spots, of which the anterior three lengthen into streaks, white; the anterior and posterior margins of the cell and broad streaks, that do not reach the terminal margin, on each side of veins 1 to 4, grey. Hindwing: rich chrome yellow; costa and termen broadly black; interspaces 1 to 7 with outwardly pointed, broadly triangular, yellowish-white diffuse spots on the black terminal margin, the black on the inner side of these spots produced conically inwards; the black in interspace 7 centred with an elongate, outwardly somewhat diffuse, oval vermilion streak.

Female

Upperside: black. Forewing: a broad oblique apical cell-bar and a curved subterminal series of somewhat hastate (spear-shaped) spots, white. Hindwing: apical two-thirds of costa and the termen broadly black, the rest of the wing yellowish white sparsely irrorated with black scales; the vermilion streak in interspace 8 on the underside shows through by transparency, and the broad terminal black border has a subterminal very obscurely marked series of whitish spots. Underside: forewing as in the male but the grey bordering restricted to very narrow streaks along the median vein and veins 2 to 4.