Larval Host Plant

Pratapa deva – White Tufted Royal
Pratapa icetas – Dark Blue Royal
Euthalia lubentina – Gaudy Baron
Delias descombesi – Red-spot Jezebel
Delias pasithoe – Red-base Jezebel

Other notes

Natural History: Native Parasitic Shrub.

A hemi-parasitic shrub growing on branches of other trees. It can be easily recognised by the rusty brown layer present on the whole plant.

Note: This plant has been recorded as a new larval host plant for Pratapa icetas – Dark Blue Royal by Tarun Karmakar and Sarika Baidya from West Kameng, Arunachal Pradesh in October 2016.

References:

Karmakar, T., R. Nitn, V. Sarkar, S. Baidya, S. Mazumder, V.K. Chandrasekharan, R. Das, G.S.G. Kumar, S. Lokhande, J. Veino, L. Veino, R. Veino, Z. Mirza, R.V. Sanap, B. Sarkar and K. Kunte. (2018). Early stages and larval host plants of some northeastern Indian buterfies. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 10(6): 11780–11799.

Robinson, G.S., P.R. Ackery, I. Kitching, G.W. Beccaloni, and L.M. Hernández. (2023). HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants. Natural History Museum. [DOI]

Urban Forest (2023): Scurrula ferruginea. Accessed on: 17 Jul 2023. [URL]

WFO (2023): Scurrula ferruginea Danser. Accessed on: 17 Jul 2023. [URL]

Page citation

Karmakar, T., S. Baidya and N. Kawthankar. 2024. Scurrula ferruginea Danser – Rusty-Leaf Mistletoe. 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/scurrula-ferruginea, accessed 2024/04/19.