Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Tigers in HortPark

These photos of the Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus chrysippus) were taken at the HortPark this morning. Outside Asia, this butterfly is also known as the African Monarch. It belongs to the Danainae (“Milkweed butterflies”) subfamily of the brush-footed butterfly family, Nymphalidae.

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The Plain Tiger is rather local in Singapore, where it generally stays within the vicinity of its caterpillar host plants, Asclepias curassavica or Calotropis gigantea both of which are not commonly cultivated in Singapore.

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The butterfly has a rich fulvous orange forewings with a broad black apical border bearing a series of white spots. It occurs in two forms - form chrysippus which has orange hindwings, and form alcippoides which has white hindwings. Males can be distinguished by an additional brand on the hindwing.

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Singapore is host to both forms of the Plain Tiger with the white-hindwinged form-alcippoides being the more common of the two forms. The species is distasteful to birds.

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A male Plain Tiger attracted to the developing fruits of the Heliotropium indicum, commonly known as Indian heliotrope.

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The male Plain Tigers are irresistibly attracted to the Heliotropium indicum.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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kurodabushi said...

Congratulations for your success in capturing the sharp images when the butterfly was in action.
Some photographers, I heard, keep the butterfly in a jam jar in a fridge to immobilise or 'tranqualise' it for easy shooting. I remember catching this 'orange colour butterfly' when I was young. Colourful butterflies are rare in Singapore.
The others are black background with light or dark green spots