Common Bluebottle is a butterfly with a wingspan of 80 - 90 mm. The upperside is black with a greenish-blue central band. The wings are pointed. The hind wings have a row of submarginal crescent shaped blue spots. The underside of the wings is brown, the blue band paler, with some red spots. The female is paler with slightly broader wings. The Common Jay is pale blue, with blue spots surrounding the central blue band.
Status, Distribution and Habitat
It occurs in the evergreen and semi-evergreen forests and is very common on the forest paths, streamsides and edges. It is found mainly at low elevations but may be seen up to 2,300 m in the Himalayas. It occurs in southern India in the Western Ghats and in the himalayas from Kashmir eastwards. Its global distribution extends over the oriental and Australian regions.
The Common Bluebottle is a nervous butterfly, settling seldom and only momentarily. It flies fast with rapid wingbeats. Although it occurs in all the vegetation layers, it spends most of its time in the canopy of the tall forest trees. It feeds on nectar, similar to the tailed jay, it visits flowers hurriedly and its wings quiver, in order to balance and move the body, while feeding. The males congregate in large numbers for mud-puddling. they also come readily to natural baits such as rotting insects.
The egg is yellowish, laid singly on the leaves of the host plants. The young larva is black or dark green with many spines. the grown up larva is green with a pair of short spines on each thoracic segment and the last segment. There is a yellow transverse band on the 4th segment, and a lateral band on the body. the caterpillar usually lies in the middle of the leaf on the upper surface and is very sluggish. The pupa is green with a slender and pointed thoracic projection, yellowish wint-cases and lateral bands.
Larval Host Plants
The caterpillars feed on plants of family Lauraceae and Annonaceae. The plants include Alseodaphne semecarpiflolia, Cinnamimum camphora, Cinnamomum macrocarpum, Cinnamomum malabatrum, litsea chinensis, Miliusa tomentosa, Polyalthia longifolia and Persea macrantha.