Subspecies in India
(1) Arhopala centaurus pirama (Moore, [1881]) – Tamil Centaur Oakblue
(2) Arhopala centaurus pirithous (Moore, [1884]) – Bengal Centaur Oakblue
(3) Arhopala centaurus coruscans Wood-Mason and de Nicéville, 1880 – Andaman Centaur Oakblue
Conservation and Special status
This species is legally protected in India under Schedule II of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
Photo Gallery and Species Biology
This species is legally protected in India under Schedule II of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
This species is reportedly globally rare, and very rare in India. Talbot (1939) noted that the British Museum of Natural History (BMNH, now the Natural History Museum), London, had only three males of this subspecies, and that the female was unknown. The specimen reported here (BOI-bu327 and BOI-bu328) is the first record of ssp. parva in India, and the first record from Arunachal Pradesh. This record is also apparently the first record of this species in India since Talbot's and Tytler's subspecies descriptions.
The species co-occurs with Delias sanaca Moore, 1857 – Pale Jezebel in the mixed evergreen forests at mid-elevations in the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in W. Arunachal Pradesh, but is much rarer than that species.
State | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | No date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Andaman and Nicobar Islands UT | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |||||||
Andhra Pradesh | |||||||||||||
Arunachal Pradesh | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||
Assam | 4 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
Bihar | |||||||||||||
Chandigarh | |||||||||||||
Chhattisgarh | |||||||||||||
Dadra & Nagar Haveli UT | |||||||||||||
Daman & Diu UT | |||||||||||||
Delhi | |||||||||||||
Goa | 1 | 1 | |||||||||||
Gujarat | |||||||||||||
Haryana | |||||||||||||
Himachal Pradesh | |||||||||||||
Jammu and Kashmir UT | |||||||||||||
Jharkhand | |||||||||||||
Karnataka | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
Kerala | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 12 | 3 | 4 | |||
Ladakh UT | |||||||||||||
Lakshadweep | |||||||||||||
Madhya Pradesh | |||||||||||||
Maharashtra | 15 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | |||||||
Manipur | |||||||||||||
Meghalaya | 1 | 8 | 1 | ||||||||||
Mizoram | |||||||||||||
Nagaland | 1 | ||||||||||||
Odisha | |||||||||||||
Puducherry UT | |||||||||||||
Punjab | |||||||||||||
Rajasthan | |||||||||||||
Sikkim | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
Tamil Nadu | |||||||||||||
Tripura | |||||||||||||
Uttar Pradesh | |||||||||||||
Uttarakhand | |||||||||||||
West Bengal | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
Total | 24 | 21 | 5 | 32 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 22 | 19 | 7 | 12 |
Key Reference:
Nitin, R., V. C. Balakrishnan, P. V. Churi, S. Kalesh, S. Prakash, and K. Kunte. 2018. Larval host plants of the butterflies of the Western Ghats, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 10:11495–11550.
For the complete list of larval host plants of Indian butterflies, see the page on larval host plants.
Evans, W. H. 1932. The Identification of Indian Butterflies. 2nd edn. Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai.
Talbot, G. 1939. The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma: Butterflies, Vol. 1. Taylor and Francis, London.
Tytler, H. C. 1939. Notes on some new and interesting butterflies chiefly from Burma. Part I. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 41:235–252.
Page citation
Saji K 2024. Arhopala centaurus (Fabricius, 1775) – Centaur Oakblue. In Kunte, K., S. Sondhi, and P. Roy (Chief Editors). Butterflies of India, v. 4.12. Published by the Indian Foundation for Butterflies. URL: https://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/arhopala-centaurus, accessed 2024/11/11.