Abisara bifasciata Moore, 1877 - Double-banded Judy

Subspecies in India

(1) Abisara bifasciata bifasciata Moore, 1877 – Andaman Double-banded Judy
(2) Abisara bifasciata suffusa Moore, 1882 – Suffused Double-banded Judy
(3) Abisara bifasciata angulata Moore, [1879] – Angled Double-banded Judy

The Indian subspecies under this species were listed by Evans (1932) under Abisara echerius (Stoll, [1790]) – the Plum Judy and Abisara kausambi C. & R. Felder, 1860 – the Straight (Plum) Judy, an arrangement that some recent authors have erroneously followed. Bennett (1950) showed echerius, bifasciata and kausambi to be specifically distinct based on differences in their male genitalia, and we are following his arrangement of subspecies under species on this website. Contrary to popular belief, A. echerius is found in India only in the southern Western Ghats (ssp. prunosa) and the Naga, Manipur and Mizo Hills (ssp. paionea), whereas A. b. suffusa is widely distributed from the Western Ghats to the Vindhya and Satpuda Hills, the Eastern Ghats, Himalaya and NE India up to the Garo and Khasi Hills. Subspecies angulata is found in the Naga Hills, whereas bifasciata is endemic to the Andaman and Nicaobar Islands. KK has personally confirmed these species- and subspecies-level distributional ranges by checking the Abisara specimens deposited in the British Museum of Natural History, London [taxonomic note added in 2013].
 

Conservation and Special status

This species is not legally protected in India under any schedules of WildLife (Protection) Act, 1972.

Photo Gallery and Species Biology

StateJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecNo date
Andaman and Nicobar Islands UT11121
Andhra Pradesh11
Arunachal Pradesh
Assam121
Bihar
Chandigarh1
Chhattisgarh131121212
Dadra & Nagar Haveli UT
Daman & Diu UT
Delhi
Goa1114
Gujarat
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Jammu and Kashmir UT1
Jharkhand
Karnataka81117109881112
Kerala221411475414
Ladakh UT
Lakshadweep
Madhya Pradesh12115311
Maharashtra3122837712209123759
Manipur21
Meghalaya
Mizoram
Nagaland
Odisha
Puducherry UT
Punjab
Rajasthan
Sikkim
Tamil Nadu111
Tripura
Uttar Pradesh1
Uttarakhand1111
West Bengal1221121214
Total453019191133443732385482
Abisara bifasciata suffusa - Primulaceae (Robinson et al. 2010), Ardisia solanacea (Wynter-Blyth 1957), Embelia tsjeriam-cottam (Davidson & Aitken 1890; Moore 1901; Pant & Chatterjee 1950) Maesa indica (Kunte 2006) (Primulaceae).

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.

 
Ankita Gupta, Blaise Pereira and Paresh V. Churi. 2013. A new species of Parapanteles Ashmead (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) from India reared from Abisara echeria Stoll (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae) with key to the Indian Parapanteles species. Zootaxa 3709 (4): 363–370.
Bennett, N. H. 1950. A revision of the echerius group of the genus Abisara Felder (Rhop. Riodinidae). The Entomologist, 83:1-9, 34-42.
Evans, W. H. 1932. The Identification of Indian butterflies. 2nd ed. Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai.

Page citation

Kunte, K., K. Saji, and H. Ogale 2024. Abisara bifasciata Moore, 1877 – Double-banded Judy. 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/index.php/abisara-bifasciata, accessed 2024/03/28.