Mycalesis mineus

Dark-branded Bushbrown
Wet-season form
Dry-season form
Conservation status
Not evaluated (IUCN 2.3)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Nymphalidae
Genus:	Mycalesis
Species:	M. mineus
Binomial name
Mycalesis mineus (Linnaeus, 1758)

The Dark-branded Bushbrown or Dark Brand Bush Brown^[1] (Mycalesis mineus) is a species of satyrine butterfly found in Asia.

Description

Wet-season form: Upperside dark van Dyke brown; forewings and hindwings with slender subterminai and terminal pale lines. Forewing with a single white-centred, fulvous-ringed, black ocellus, generally set in a square pale area, in interspace 2, occasionally a similar smaller ocellus without any pale surrounding area in interspace 5. Hindwing uniform sometimes with one or two obscure postmedian ocelli. Underside: ground colour similar; forewings and hindwings crossed by a transverse dusky-white discal band, well-defined inwardly, diffuse outwardly, followed by a post-discal series of ocelli surrounded by a dusky-yellowish, sometimes purplish white, line; the ocelli are similar to the ocelli on the upperside, and vary from two to four on the forewing and from five to seven (the preapical two being sometimes obsolescent) on the hindwing; of these latter the posterior four, not three as in Mycalesis perseus, are in a straight line; finally, beyond the rows of ocelli on both wings there are pale or purplish-white subterminal and terminal sinuous lines.

Dry-season form: Upperside similar to that in the wet-season form, but paler. Underside from ochraceous brown to dusky brown of a darker shade; basal half of the wings conspicuously darker than the outer portions; the whole surface irrorated with fine brown striae; sometimes a distinct dark discal band crosses both wings; ocelli nearly obsolete, indicated by minute white specks, the posterior four on the hindwing in a straight line as in the wet-season form. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen brown; the club of the antennae with black and ochraceous marks. Male sex-mark in form 1 as in M. perseus, but the patch of specialized scales on the underside of the forewing half as large again.^[2]

• 
  Wet-season form in Kolkata, West Bengal, India
• 
  Dry-season form sipping at pealed Banana trunk at Narendrapur near Kolkata, West Bengal, India
• 
  M. m. macromalayana, Indonesia

Footnotes

1. Life History of Dark Brand Bush Brown, Butterflies of Singapore
2. Bingham, C.T. (1905). The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma Butterflies. 1 (1st ed.). London: Taylor and Francis, Ltd.

References

• Bingham, C.T. (1905). The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma Butterflies. 1 (1st ed.). London: Taylor and Francis, Ltd.