Nacaduba kurava

Nacaduba kurava, the transparent six-line blue, is a species of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae found in Asia and Australia. The species was first described by Frederic Moore in 1857.

Description

Male upperside: pale dull violet with in certain lights a frosted silvery sheen; bases of wings suffused slightly with blue. Forewing: a slender anteciliary dark brown line. Hindwing: costa broadly paler; dorsum brownish; in most specimens the subterminal spots in interspaces 1 and 2 show through by transparency from the underside, in a few these spots are marked by actual scaling; an anteciliary dark brown line as in the forewing. Underside: brown. Forewing: transversely traversed by three pairs of white strigae, the innermost pair slightly curved, from subcostal vein to vein 1 across the middle of the cell; the inner striga of the medial pair complete, crosses on the inner side of the discocellulars from subcostal vein to vein 1, the outer striga beyond the discocellulars from vein 7 to vein 1, interrupted in interspace 5; the outer pair of strigae are discal and cross -from vein 7 to vein 3, the inner striga of the pair impinging at vein 3 on the outer striga of the medial pair; these are followed by an inner and an outer subterminal slender lunular line, a terminal series of slender transversely linear spots edged outwardly by a very slender white, and an anteciliary dark brown line. Hindwing: crossed by six or seven irregular, more or less broken, sublunular, white striations; terminal markings similar to those on the forewing; interspace 1 with a minute, interspace 2 with a much larger round jet-black spot, both spots crowned inwardly with ochraceous orange and touched outwardly with glittering metallic blue scales. Antennae black, the shafts obscurely speckled with white on the sides; head, thorax and abdomen purplish brown; beneath: the palpi fringed with black hairs, the thorax bluish white, abdomen white.

Female upperside, forewing: costa above the cell, apex very broadly and a terminal edging that occupies about one-third of the length of the wing jet-black, this colour on the costa widened outwards; the remainder of the wing white shaded with dusky greyish which in certain lights has a beautiful metallic blue iridescence; on the inner side of the terminal edging is a transverse, very ill-defined, diffuse dusky band, and enclosed between it and the black edging three somewhat prominent spots of the white ground colour.