Common Palmking

Common name for a species of butterfly native to the Indian subcontinent, parts of China and Southeast Asia, including in Thailand, where it is named after its caterpillar form, i.e. phi seua non maprao khon puy (ผีเสื้อหนอนมะพร้าวขนปุย), which translates as ‘shaggy coconut butterfly caterpillar’. Its scientific designation is Amathusia phidippus. Above the wings are mostly umber-brown with a black-edged fawn band that runs along the outer edges of all four wings, which themselves are chestnut on the fore wings and also fawn on the hindwings, which in addition have a pale base with four dark, tiny, transverse streaks near the centre. The underside of the wings is brown, with transverse pale brown and ochraceous-white bands of different width, crossing both fore and hindwings, and with two black-edged ochraceous ocelli, that have a black smudge and a small white dot at the centre, both similar yet one larger than the other, and more profound in the rainy season. The head, thorax and abdomen are umber-brown, the antennae reddish. Females are similar to males but paler. See also WILDLIFE PICTURES. 回