Losaria coon, the common clubtail, is a butterfly belonging to the swallowtail family, Papilionidae. The butterfly belongs to the clubtails, genus Losaria. It includes several subspecies and is found from the Nicobar Islands and Assam in India, east to Hainan in China, and south through Indochina, to Java and other islands of Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Description The butterfly has a wingspan of . Both sexes are generally alike, however the females have broader wings and shorter hindwing tails. The butterfly has long and narrow wings and a characteristic spatulate tail, which gives it its name. The forewing is black with pale markings between the veins. Two-thirds of the cell of the hindwing is white with a row of white spots around it. It has crimson or dusky white lunules along the margin and disc.
Detailed description as given in Bingham (1907) is as follows:
Bingham describes race cacharensis, Butler, the subspecies found in Cachar (Assam) as follows:
Distribution Source:
The common clubtail is a woodland species which may be found both in the plains and the hills. This butterfly is found in Assam, Manipur and the Nicobar Islands (India), through mainland Southeast Asia, east to Hainan (China), and south to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Bawean. It is absent from Borneo.
Subspecies Losaria coon has four subspecies, excluding the former L. palu, now regarded as the separate species Losaria palu (Palu clubtail) and L. doubledayi, which is now regarded as the separate species Losaria doubledayi (Common clubtail).
There are four subspecies reported for this species:Fernando, E., Jangid, A.K., Chowdhury, S., Kehimar, I., Lo, P. & Moonen, J. 2019. Losaria coon. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2019: e.T121971752A122602136. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-3.RLTS.T121971752A122602136.en the nominate subspecies coon sangkapurae (Bollino and Sala, 1992) palembanganus (Rothschild, 1896) patianus (Fruhstorfer, 1898)
Habits It has been recorded in Manipur during February and April and from July to October. The distinctive black and yellow/orange/red (depending on subspecies) markings and slow flight indicate that it is a protected butterfly being inedible due to sequestration of certain chemicals from the plants that the caterpillar feeds on.
Food plant Apama tomentosa
Life cycle The caterpillar is variable in colour and ranges from reddish grey to black and has many black spots and stripes.
See also List of butterflies of South Asia List of butterflies of India (Papilionidae)
Cited references
Additional references Carter, David. (1992, 2000) Dorling Kindersley Handbook of Butterflies and Moths. London.
Rahman, M.S., Haidar, I.K.A., Neogi, A.K., Hasan, M.A.U., Rahman, M.M. and Imam, S.M.S 2016. First record of six species and subspecies of butterflies (Insecta: Lepidoptera) in Bangladesh. Journal of Insect Biodiversity and Systematics, 2 (3): 373–380.
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