Folks, some time ago there was discussion on the group about the Chocolate Pansy (Junonia iphita), and someone said that females have a white costal spot on underside hindwing, by which they can be easily distinguished from the males. I was not sure about this, so I started to look out for mating pairs which I could catch and in which I could check sex of the individual with the white spot. Over the past year I saw several mating pairs in which the individual with the white spot was always the female, but then I also came across many pairs in which none of the sexes had a white spot, and one case where both the sexes had the white spot. I also saw a freshly eclosed male which had a white spot. All of my pictures, and those of other contributors, are now on our website:
http://ifoundbutterflies.org/161-junonia/junonia-iphita-dp1 So it seems to me that if you see an individual with a white spot, it is likely to be a female. But it is not true that females always have the white spot, and we should also note that some males have it. With best wishes, Krushnamegh. ------------------------------------------------- Krushnamegh Kunte, PhD Post-doctoral Research Fellow 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] Other emails: [email protected], [email protected] Personal website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~kunte/index.htm Indian Foundation for Butterflies: http://ifoundbutterflies.org/ Google profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/krushnamegh -- Enjoy
