Common evening brown

Melanitis leda

"Melanitis leda", the common evening brown, is a common species of butterfly found flying at dusk. The flight of this species is erratic. They are found in Africa, South Asia and South-east Asia extending to parts of Australia.
mud puddling Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are diverse in their strategies to gather liquid nutrients. Typically, mud-puddling behavior takes place on wet soil. But even sweat on human skin may be attractive to butterflies such as species of Halpe. More unusual sources include blood and tears. This one is common evening brown butterfly.. Fact: fact is this species never opens its wings till its death when in sitting position.. There are exceptions where experts says may be the one with opened wings are newly hatched.. 70-300,D5200,Melanitis leda,Nikon,NikonD5200,Tamron,abhitap,asia,incredibleindia,india,lepidoptera,maharashtra,mumbra,thane

Appearance

Wet-season form: Fore wing: apex subacute; termen slightly angulated just below apex, or straight. Upperside brown. Fore wing with two large subapical black spots, each with a smaller spot outwardly of pure white inwardly bordered by a ferruginous interrupted lunule; costal margin narrowly pale. Hind wing with a dark, white-centred, fulvous-ringed ocellus subterminally in interspace two, and the apical ocellus, sometimes also others of the ocelli,on the underside, showing through.

Underside paler, densely covered with transverse dark brown striae; a discal curved dark brown narrow band on fore wing; a post-discal similar oblique band, followed by a series of ocelli: four on the fore wing, that in interspace 8 the largest; six on the hind wing, the apical and subtornal the largest.

Dry-season form: Fore wing : apex obtuse and more or less falcate; termen posterior to falcation straight or sinuous. Upperside: ground-colour similar to that in the wet-season form, the markings, especially the ferruginous lunules inwardly bordering the black sub-apical spots on fore wing, larger, more extended below and above the black costa. Hind wing : the ocellus in interspace 2 absent, posteriorly replaced by three or four minute white subterminal spots.

Underside varies in colour greatly. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen in both seasonal forms brown or greyish brown: the antennae annulated with white, ochraceous at apex.
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Habitat

Colonel C. T. Bingham wrote of the genus in 1878:

The "Melanitis" was there among dead leaves, its wings folded and looking for all the world a dead, dry leaf itself. With regard to "Melanitis", I have not seen it recorded anywhere that the species of this genus when disturbed fly a little way, drop suddenly into the undergrowth with closed wings, and invariably lie a little askew and slanting, which still more increases their likeness to a dead leaf casually fallen to the ground.

Resident butterflies are known to fight off visitors to the area during dusk hours. This chase behaviour is elicited even by pebbles thrown nearby.

The caterpillars feed on a wide variety of grasses including rice, bamboos, "Andropogon", "Rotboellia cochinchinensis", "Brachiaria mutica", "Cynodon", "Imperata", and millets such as "Oplismenus compositus", "Panicum" and "Eleusine indica".

Adults feed mainly on nectar, and in rare cases visit rotting fruits.

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