The Apefly is a small 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 Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 that belongs to the Lycaenids or Blues

Lycaenidae

The Lycaenidae are the second-largest family of butterflies, with about 6000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies...

 family. It gets its name from the supposed resemblance of its caterpillar to the face of an ape.

Male

Upperside: dull brown, slightly darker towards the apex of the fore wing; also a more or less quadrate whitish spot beyond the apex of the cell on the same wing; in some specimens this spot is slightly diffuse. Underside : pale, silky, brownish-white; fore and hind wings crossed by numerous, very slender, short, sinuous, transverse, dark brown strigae which are outwardly slenderly edged with brownish-white of a shade paler than that of the ground-colour; both wings with an anticiliary dark brown line with on the inner side a similar edging. Fore wing, in addition, with an oval white spot beyond the cell. Cilia of both fore and hind wings of the same shade as the ground-colour of the wings. Antenna, head, thorax and abdomen pale brown, club of antennae ochraceous at apex; beneath : the palpi and thorax brownish-grey, abdomen pale brown.

Female

Upperside: slightly paler brown. Fore wing: the cell and apex darker; a white spot similar to that in the male but larger, beyond the apex of the cell; in most specimens extended diffusely outwards and downwards. Hind wing: similar to that of the male. Underside: precisely as in the male.

Life cycle

The caterpillars of this butterfly like other members of the subfamily Miletinae

Miletinae

Miletinae is a subfamily of the Lycaenidae family of butterflies, commonly called Harvesters, and virtually unique among butterflies in having predatory larvae....

 are entomophagous and are predators of scale insect

Scale insect

The scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, generally classified as the superfamily Coccoidea. There are about 8,000 species of scale insects.-Ecology:...

s. The species unlike many other lycaenid butterflies

Lycaenidae

The Lycaenidae are the second-largest family of butterflies, with about 6000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies...

 is not myrmecophilous

Myrmecophily

Myrmecophily is the term applied to positive interspecies associations between ants and a variety of other organisms such as plants, arthropods, and fungi...

.

External links

• Asahi Correctly determined photos of Spalgis epius