Common Pierrot

Fascinating facts about the Common Pierrot

• The common Pierrot occupies a broad swathe of South and Southeast Asia. It occurs across the Indian subcontinent, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Myanmar, and reaches into the Tenasserim region of the Malayan subregion. Further east the species is recorded on many Indonesian islands such as north-eastern Sumatra, Kalimantan, eastern Java, Bali, Bangka, Timor, Wetar, Kissar, Sumbawa and Sulawesi.
• Both male and female common Pierrots can alter their wing hues with the seasons, producing lighter or darker appearances while keeping the same pattern layout. Observers have noted that some individuals become melanic, showing a much darker ground colour but retaining the characteristic black spots and edging.
• The caterpillar of the common Pierrot lives on the plant Ziziphus jujuba, feeding exclusively on its leaves. Its body is bright green and bears a double yellow line along the dorsal surface, while the sides are dotted with minute yellow spots, giving it a shagreened texture. It has the typical woodlouse shape of lycaenid larvae, being strongly flattened toward a very broad anal segment and keeping its head concealed beneath the thorax.
• The pupa of the common Pierrot is unusually glossy, appearing as if coated with gum, and may be either black or green with variable black markings. It follows the typical Castalius shape but is narrower and slightly flattened compared with related species. Colour can shift between a solid black form and a green form that bears inconsistent black markings.
• Both forewings and hindwings have white cilia that are interrupted by black at the vein tips, and the hindwing bears a short filamentous tail tipped black with white. The cilia alternate white and black specifically at the apices of the veins, creating a patterned fringe. The hindwing tail is described as a filamentous short tail, black tipped with white, adding a distinctive mark to the otherwise plain wing margins.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Common Pierrot

In the dappled light of the forest, the Common Pierrot dances with an air of delicate abandon, its iridescent blue wings beating in a hypnotic rhythm as it flits from flower to flower. With each delicate touch, it sips nectar from the blossoms, its proboscis uncoiling like a slender thread, as it moves through the world with a quiet, unassuming beauty. As it alights upon a sun-kissed leaf, its wings fold like a tiny, shimmering fan, revealing the subtle, mottled browns and whites that allow it to blend seamlessly into its surroundings.

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