The Popinjay Stibochiona nicea 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 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...

.

Description

Male upperside deep velvety black. Fore wing: cell with three somewhat obscure light blue transverse short lines, a curved series of four discal and of five postdiscal minute white spots anteriorly, and a complete series of subterminal similar spots, bordered inwardly by a row of paired blue marks on each side of veins 1 to 6. Hind wing: a postdiscal blue transverse sinuous line not reaching the costa or dorsum, followed by a subterminal series of blue circular marks with black centres, their rims outwardly snow-white. Cilia of both fore and hind wing white, alternated with black on the fore, continuous on the hind wing. Underside purplish black. Fore wing: the cell-marks better defined, the discal and postdiscal series of spots sinuous, each of seven spots ; the subterminal row of spots as on the upperside, but larger, the line of blue paired marks on the veins bordering the subterminal row on the inner side above absent. Hind wing: three obliquely placed subbasal spots and a transverse sinuous line of discal spots blue, followed by a series of five or six postdiscal dots and a subterminal line of transverse inwardly crescentic bars in the interspaces lilacine white.
Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen black.
Female similar, but on the upperside the ground-colour dull black suffused with green, the cell-markings and the inner subterminal paired spots on the fore wing and the postdiscal sinuous band on the hind wing metallic green. Underside ground-colour fuliginous black, the markings as in the male but larger.

See also

• Nymphalidae
  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...
  
  
• List of butterflies of India
• List of Butterflies of India (Nymphalidae)