Sasakia charonda

Great purple emperor
Sasakia charonda
Female
Male (left) and female (right)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Division: Rhopalocera
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Nymphalidae
Genus: Sasakia
Species: S. charonda
Binomial name
Sasakia charonda
(Hewitson, 1863)
Synonyms[1][2]
  • Diadema charonda Hewitson, 1863
  • Euripus coreanus Leech, 1887

Sasakia charonda, commonly known as the Japanese emperor or the great purple emperor, is a species of butterflies in the family Nymphalidae. It is native to Japan (from Hokkaidō to Kyūshū), the Korean Peninsula, China, Northern Taiwan, Northern Vietnam. Their wingspans average at 50 mm (2.0 in) for males, and 65 mm (2.6 in) for females. They are common in the upper canopies of forests, only coming down to feed or to find salt sources. The larvae of the species feed on hackberries, like Celtis jessoensis, Celtis japonica, and Celtis sinensis.[3][4]

S. charonda is the national butterfly of Japan, where it is known as 大紫 or オオムラサキ (oh-murasaki, "great purple").[5][6] Its Chinese name is 大紫蛺蝶(Traditional Chinese) and Korean name is 왕오색나비, which means 'king five-coloured butterfly'.

See also

References

  1. William C. Hewitson (1862–1866). Illustrations of New Species of Exotic Butterflies, Selected Chiefly from the Collections of W. Wilson Saunders and William C. Hewitson. Volume III (PDF). John Van Voorst. p. 50. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.12625.
  2. Frederic Moore (1896). Lepidoptera Indica. Volume III (PDF). Lovell Reeve & Co. Limited. p. 39. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.8763.
  3. Nubuo Moriue & Masayuki Hayashi (2007). The Handbook of Insects and their Host Plants. Bun-ichi Sougou Shuppan. ISBN 978-4-8299-0026-0.
  4. Markku Savela. "Sasakia Moore, 1896". Lepidoptera and some other life forms.
  5. Jiřina Matějková-Plšková; Dalibor Jančik; Miroslav Mašláň; Satoshi Shiojiri & Makoto Shiojiri (2010). "Photonic Crystal Structure of Wing Scales in Sasakia Charonda Butterflies" (PDF). Materials Transactions. 51 (2): 202208. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2818.2009.03233.x.
  6. "Sasakia charonda (Japanese Emperor, Japanischer Kaiser)". Butterflycorner.net. Retrieved February 25, 2012.


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