Thank you KK that was highly educative. ramjee ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: butterflyindia ; Butterflynortheast Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 12:11 PM Subject: [ButterflyIndia] Windmills (Atrophaneura spp)
rudra recently sent me a butterfly picture for confirmation, and i made the attached collage of pictures to help everyone distinguish between the two commonest indian Windmills: the Common Windmill (Atrophaneura polyeuctes) and the Great Windmill (A. dasarada). both the species have a large white spot on the hind-wing and tips of the tails red but the distinguishing character is that the submarginal spot in space 4 of the hind-wing (marked with arrows in the attached pictures) is crimson-red in the Common Windmill and pure white or whitish (individual variation) in the Great Windmill. although both the species are supposed to have red tail-tips on both wing surfaces, some of the Great Windmill specimens that i have seen had the red lacking on the upper side of the wings (as in my specimen in picture 3). remember this small but important difference between the two species; it should help you all in identifying most of your Windmill pictures. unfortunately, isaac's book has mistakenly given the picture of the Great Windmill as that of the Common Windmill and his description of both the species is also off the mark (p. 138). perhaps you should all mark this in your copies (isaac, please take note). -- Dr. Krushnamegh Kunte Post-doctoral Research Fellow (Kronforst Lab) FAS Center for Systems Biology Harvard University 52 Oxford St Northwest Lab Room 458.40-3 Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Ph: (617) 496-0078 Cell: (512) 577-1370 Fax: (617) 495-2196 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Academic Website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/AcademicsHome.htm General Website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/index.htm. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Enjoy -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
