Sri lankan brown winged butterfly

Found in countries such as, Sri Lanka, Africa to Burma. A medium sized reddish brown butterfly with rounded wing spices and rather long wings. It is brightly colored with a remarkable range of colors. The wings are somewhat transparent. The upper side is filled with black spots and small markings. The marginal band of the hind wing on the upper sides is black and has small white spots. The corresponding band on the underside is much wider, but is almost entirely occupied by large white spots.

Female is dull brown in color and the wings are more transparent than the male.

The female possess what appears to be a post- copulatory sphragis (plug) covering the ostium.

A common butterfly found throughout the island from sea level to 2000 feet elevation. It is a butterfly of open spaces with lots of sunshine such as, edges of forests and cultivated fields, roadsides, property boundaries with over-grown vegetation, coastal sand dunes and secondary forests. It may be seen throughout the year but is commonest and most abundant during the monsoons.

The search of food and mating occurs slowly and leisurely, with minimal expenditure of energy due to the avoidance of predators. 

It frequently settles on flowers and shows the habit of opening and closing its wings as it nectar on flowers. It does not fly high but remains within a few feet of the ground, circling in and out of clumps of vegetation. They are generally seen flying in the same vicinity in all whether.

Larvae and pupa are known to be gregarious in wild or cultivated areas. Hence indigenous market gardeners consider them to be pests.