Tagiades gana

Suffused snow flat
Western Ghats specimen
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Hesperiidae
Genus: Tagiades
Species: T. gana
Binomial name
Tagiades gana
(Moore, 1865)

Tagiades gana, the immaculate snow flat, large snow flat or suffused snow flat, is a butterfly belonging to the family Hesperiidae.

Description

For a key to the terms used, see Glossary of entomology terms.

In 1891, Edward Yerbury Watson gave a detailed description:

Male and female have a dark brown ground colour. The male has on the upperside of the forewing, three minute semi-transparent spots obliquely before the apex; a transverse discal series of streaks, a small patch within the cell, one near the base of the wing, and exterior margin blackish; hindwing with the lower third pure white which is straightly separated from the brown of the basal portion; apical margin and three spots on the upper part of the disc, black, and two spots on the middle of the white anterior margin. Underside paler brown, semi-transparent spots on forewing as above: hindwing white suffused with brown along the anterior margin: upper discal and marginal spots as above black. Female paler. Upperside somewhat greyish-brown; forewing with spots and blackish discal streaks, and hindwing with upper discal spots as in male: exterior margin of hindwing greyish-white. Underside as in male. Cilia of both sexes pure white on the lower portion of the hindwing, the rest brown.
— E. Y. Watson[1]

Dioscorea alata is a host plant for the larvae.[2]

Cited references

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tagiades gana.
  1. ↑ Watson, E. Y. (1891).
  2. ↑ Kalesh, S & S K Prakash (2007). "Additions of the larval host plants of butterflies of the Western Ghats, Kerala, Southern India (Rhopalocera, Lepidoptera): Part 1". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 104 (2): 235–238.

References

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