The Gaudy Baron is a species of nymphalid

Nymphalidae

The Nymphalidae is a family of about 5,000 species of butterflies which are distributed throughout most of the world. These are usually medium sized to large butterflies. Most species have a reduced pair of forelegs and many hold their colourful wings flat when resting. They are also called...

 butterfly

Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

 found in South Asia

South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...

 and Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

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Description

Male. Upperside dark greenish brown. Fore wing: a bar across middle and a bar beyond apex of cell crimson bordered with black: a slightly oblique transverse discal series of small white spots from costa to interspace 1, followed by a preapical curved row of four similar spots and a transverse subterminal series of elongate black spots forming an obscure band. Hind wing: a crescent-shaped black loop near apex of cell-area ; a curved postdiscal series of four or five crimson spots outwardly bordered with black, the subcostal spot the largest, followed by a subterminal series of velvety-black subquadrate spots, the anterior three and the tornal spot outwardly crimson. Underside dark purplish brown suffused slightly with ochraceous, the markings as on the upperside but larger and more clearly defined, and in addition:— fore wing: two small black spots at base ; basal half of costal margin crimson; hind wing: four crimson spots bordered with black at base; costal and dorsal margins crimson ; another spot in the postdiscal series; the velvety-black spotting of the upperside more or less obsolete. Antennae dark brown, club beneath crimson ; head, thorax and abdomen dark greenish brown ; beneath, the palpi and the fore legs crimson, the rest pale brown.

Female. Similar, paler. Upperside fore wing: the transverse crimson bands in cell obscure with a broad black-bordered white band interposed, the discal series of white spots very large, very irregular in shape. Hind wing: the ground-colour suffused with greenish blue on terminal posterior half of wing; markings similar to those of the male. Underside brown, the tornal half of the hind wing bluish green. Fore wing : the markings as on the upperside with the addition of two small black spots at base and an obscure broad terminal pale band. Hind wing with four black-bordered transverse crimson spots at base in addition to the markings as on the upperside. Antennae, head, thorax and .abdomen as in the male, but paler ; the palpi beneath with a stripe of pink, the fore legs whitish.

Distribution

The lower foot-hills of the Himalayas from Haridwar to Sikhim, but recorded from Mussooree, at 10,000 ft.; Oudh; Bengal; eastward through Bhutan, Assam, Cachar to Burma, Teuasserim, Siam, Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. On continental India southward from Bombay.

Life history

Larva. Armed with ten pairs of long, horizontally projected, very delicately-branched spines. Colour grass-green with a dorsal row of large purplish-brown angulated spots each with or without a small pure white diamond-spot in its middle, these dorsal spots placed on the anterior half of the 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th segments; the lateral spines green tipped with purple-brown.

Pupa. Green, but with two lateral brown marks, each with a dirty-white centre and two brown points equally with whitish centres between these and the terminating projection.