Cethosia nietneri
species of insect
Cethosia nietneri, the Tamil lacewing, is a species of nymphalid butterfly found in Sri Lanka and south India. The species name is after John Nietner who obtained specimens of the butterfly from Ceylon from which it was described.
Description
Nominate race (Sri Lanka)
Male
Upperside deep black. Forewing: a broad line along both sides of the basal halves of veins 1 and 2 and of median vein ochraceous; a curved series of short bluish streaks between the veins beyond apex of cell, terminating in a much longer streak above vein 4; a transverse discal series of similarly coloured slender oval loops, open outwardly, followed by a series of transverse white spots, the upper two bluish, and a subterminal row of slender lunules, the tornal lunule double. Hindwing: interspace 1a and interspace 1 to near the tornus pinkish or bluish white, the markings of the underside showing through; cell black, with an ochraceous black-centred spot; interspaces 1 to 5 bluish white on disc, with very broad median. Short streaks, followed by a series of large oval spots of the black ground colour; terminal and costal margins very broadly black, traversed by a postdiscal row of transverse short, white, inwardly-turned lunules, and a subterminal row of much more slender, outwardly-turned, similarly coloured lunules. Cilia white. Underside: basal and discal areas of both forewings and hindwings bluish green, variously barred and spotted with black, the short white streaks between the veins beyond apex of cell as on the upperside; a postdiscal band of: pinkish white, somewhat obscure on the fore, more clearly defined on the hindwing, traversed by a series of oval black spots, followed by a broad subterminal even band of ochraceous yellow, inwardly margined by a row of black dots; terminal margins broadly black, traversed by a series of slender outwardly turned white lunules, each lunule with a short white median streak from the margin.
Antennae black; head and thorax black above, greenish white spotted with black beneath; abdomen ochraceous, barred with black, beneath whitish with numerous black dots.
Female
Similar, all the black markings smaller; the base posteriorly of the forewing on the upperside greenish blue, no trace of ochraceous.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cethosia nietneri” as species of insect. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of insect. 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 Apr 23, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q3595087. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cethosia nietneri” 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.