Doi Suthep-Pui NP, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Order : Lepidoptera
Family : Nymphalidae
Sub-Family : Danainae
Genus : Danaus
Species : Danaus chrysippus chrysippus
Widely distributed from India, through Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, China, Malaysia, and the Philippines. One would also expect to see them in Laos and Cambodia but I have no records of this. It is a medium-large butterfly with a wingspan of 55-70mm. Habitat is warm open country, parks, and gardens but also sometimes in moist forested hilly areas up to an altitude of 2700m asl. The species is distasteful to predators and it is quite common to see them in the early morning feeding on the pyrrolizidine alkaloids oozing from the stems and seed pods of such plants as Senna. It is these alkaloids that give the butterfly their bad taste. Both sexes nectar on flowers and males also feed on animal dung and mud puddle on damp ground.
Larval food plants include Asclepias curassavica, Calotropis gigantea (Apocynaceae), and Ficus racemosa (Moraceae). Eggs are laid singly on the underside of a leaf of the host plant and the lifecycle from egg to adult takes around 17-20 days. The adult lifespan is between 7 and 14 days, males generally living longer than females.
All my insect pics are handheld single shots of live animals, usually in wild situations.
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